In Quest of Time
by William Easley
Summary: September-October, 2014: After Dipper and Mabel go home to Piedmont, Stanford and Stanley set off to Spain and then back to America, following the trail of Ponce de Leon, who may or may not have discovered . . . a fountain of youth.
1. Chapter 1

**In Quest of Time**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: In a Dry Land**

 **From the Journals of Stanford Pines:** _I owe my brother Stanley a lot. I have to keep reminding myself of that so I will not bash him over the head. Since we left Gravity Falls four days ago, he has done nothing but complain!_

 _He complained about the long flight from Portland to New York. He complained about the airport hotel where we stayed overnight. He complained about the trip from JFK to Madrid—why did we have to stop in England? He complained about the heat in Spain as we took the high-speed train from Madrid to Valladolid. He complained about how dry it was when we got off the train at the Estación de Valladolid-Campo Grande._

 _He complained about the streets. Some were too narrow. Others were too wide. He complained about the location of the Hotel Quijote. I finally said, "Stanley, it's clean, air-conditioned, and comfortable! There are restaurants all around with good food! We have a room with a wonderful view! It's only one block away from the Biblioteca de Antiquites! What in heaven's name is wrong with the location of the hotel?"_

" _It's in Spain!" he shot back._

 _Oh, well. I anticipate my research will last a week if I spend at least fourteen hours a day in the library, and I MAY wind up spending twenty-four hours a day there._

 _(Afternoon, same day) Stan has mellowed a little since this morning. I think he was edgy because he despises air travel. He told me once he regretted that my old government contacts had managed to expunge our "records" (actually, both were his, but he was posing as me for part of the time) and get our passports restored and have our names taken off the no-fly list. I've tried explaining to him that flying is safer than driving, but he says, "Only the way YOU drive, Brainiac!"_

 _Anyway, we had a wonderful lunch at the Restaurante de Jardines, and that put him in a better mood. Then he saw a group of men at a nearby table playing a betting game with cards. He wandered over there and despite not being able to speak the language, joined the game. He'll probably be broke by this evening, but at least he seems happy. Now I'm off to the Biblioteca to meet Fr. Mendez, with whom I corresponded over the summer. I'm hoping for luck!_

* * *

Ford returned to the hotel at a little past nine that evening, although he was jet-lagged and it felt later. The air-conditioning had been cranked way down, and a comfortable-looking Stan, propped up on a chair cushion and two pillows, lay stretched out on one of the beds and wearing an undershirt and boxer shorts while he watched a _fútbol_ game on TV. "Cripes!" Stan said the moment Ford let himself into the room, "you smell like the first time I swept out the attic for the kids to come visit!"

"It's just dust. That's because old maps and manuscripts are quite dusty, Stanley," Ford said. "But what a treasure house of information!"

Stan muted the TV and sat up in bed, his eyes gleaming behind his spectacles. "Treasure, you say?"

"Yes—a wealth of _information_ , Stanley, not of money."

"Meh." Stan lay back and turned up the sound again, and the announcers were going wild in Spanish over some play that had either succeeded or failed spectacularly.

"How did your card game go?" Ford asked with an edge of sarcasm as he took off his jacket and hung it on the back of a chair.

"Dunno. What's a Euro?"

Ford sat on the edge of his bed and took off his shoes. "Ahh, that feels good after those long flights and hours in the library stacks. Stanley, a Euro is the currency of Spain—and most of Europe! You should know that."

With a cocky grin, Stan replied, "All I know's I won 1,205 of 'em."

Ford stared at his twin. "What!"

With a shrug, Stan said, "Yeah, that'll probably buy, like, what, a taco?"

"Tacos are Mexican food, not Spanish," Ford told him. "And twelve hundred Euros is about, let me see, sixteen hundred dollars!"

"Ya don't say!" Stan looked surprised but pleased. "In that case, I may want to extend our stay here, Ford! These Spanish guys are plain nuts about gambling. There's a casino about half a mile from here. Tomorrow while you're pokin' around your maps and manuscripts, I think I'll visit it and see if I can build up my winnings."

"Fine," Ford said, lying back on his bed. "But set a limit! Take the Eruos you won as your stake, and when you lose that, walk away."

"We could go together," Stanley said slyly. "You always calculate the odds, and then we do great!"

"Not tomorrow," Ford told him. He lay down on his own bed, still wearing trousers and shirt and socks. "If you're interested, I found the long-lost atlas of hand-drawn maps of Simon de Ortiz. That's a key element. About a hundred maps and charts dating back to 1523. Tomorrow I have permission to photograph pertinent pages, providing I don't use a flash."

"Conned the librarian, huh? She a looker?" Stanley asked.

"She's a he. A Jesuit priest, and I wouldn't say I conned him, though I'm afraid the good Father Mendez thinks I'm an academic working on a history of Spanish expeditions to the New World in the sixteenth century. This town is incredibly rich in history."

"Tell me about it. I walked past Cervantes's house today," Stanley said, yawning. "He's the guy who wrote _The Count of Monte Cristo,_ right?"

"Wrong," Ford said. "He wrote _El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha_. That's usually translated into English as just _Don Quixote_."

"About a coyote?"

"Quixote, not coyote! Stanley, it's a masterpiece of world literature!"

"OK, I'm impressed. So, do the maps help ya?"

"I'll know tomorrow. I must go carefully through the atlas page by page, using a magnifying glass. I'm also looking for a rumored but unpublished manuscript, 'Una Cuenta de tres expediciones al Nuevo Mundo para la gloria de Dios y España,' by Renaldo de Delgado y Ramos. He was a navigator for Ponce de Leon and three of his surviving letters make passing mention of the manuscript, and one even mentions our goal. The manuscript is three or four hundred pages long—if I can find it—and may have fuller information."

"Good thing you can read Spanish."

"Yes, though this is a little difficult. Remember, this is early 16th Century stuff. It's a little like reading Chaucer in Middle English."

"Is that hard?"

Ford cleared his throat and said, "Byfore the temple-dore ful soberly / Dame Pees sat, with a curtyn in hire hond, / And by hire syde, wonder discretly, / Dame Pacience syttynge there I fond, / With face pale, upon an hil of sond."

"That's Spanish, huh?"

"English, Stanley. Middle English. The Spanish in the records is nearly, but not quite, as difficult to read as that."

Stan stretched. "They got room service. Wanna order dinner?"

"You order for both of us."

"Ya don't care what you eat, Sixer?"

Stanford shook his head. "I rarely pay attention to such details. Order what looks good, and I'll eat it."

Stanley did, and the food was good, and the elder Pines twins ate and then showered and prepared for bed. As he reached to switch off the bedside lamp, a more contented-sounding Stanley said, "Hey, about your trip to the library tomorrow, good luck, Poindexter."

"Thank you. Good luck to you at the casino."

Stanley winked at him and then clicked off the light. In the darkness, he said, "It ain't luck that does it, Sixer. It's skill—and chutzpah!"

* * *

Two days later, after Ford had exhausted the main-floor collection of books, Fr. Mendez led him down a narrow, crumbling set of stone steps. "These," he said in flawless English—he had been educated at Oxford, among other places—"date from when the building was first erected as a home for orphans, in 1601." With thin, long-fingered hands he patted the ancient stone wall. "When these were put into place, the English had yet to establish even one permanent colony in the Americas. Spain had dozens—in Mexico, certainly, but throughout South and Central America. Even St. Augustine, in Florida! From 1492 on, records and maps came here, where they were stored and—alas, mostly forgotten."

They emerged in a windowless, vaulted, stone-walled room. An electric cable ran overhead, with bare light bulbs hanging at intervals. The air felt still and stale, unbreathed for a long time. There was no air conditioning down here. "These," Fr. Mendez explained, "are the vaults. The catacombs of history!" He stopped in the center of the long room, his body lean and gaunt, like a figure in an El Greco painting, a white-haired, bespectacled man wearing a black cassock and a clerical collar. "You see the shelves in the alcoves, stacked high with boxes. In each box, there are stacks of ancient papers. You must handle them very carefully. You have the gloves?"

Ford held up a pair of white cotton gloves—modified ones. He had taken two pairs of extra-large gloves and had cut the pinky fingers from one pair. A local seamstress had altered the remaining pair, stitching the extra finger in. Though when she'd first noticed Ford's hands she had murmured, " _Madre de Dios_!" she did not seem to think him a freak and smiled when she turned the gloves over to him.

"You must wear them at all times when you handle the documents," the priest told Stanford. "The air here is very dry, remember. That is the salvation of these records—the bookworm does not flourish here, and mold can get no foothold." He stopped at a massively-built oak table, its surface covered with a four-by-six-foot slab of thick tempered glass. "Keep the pages in strict order. You may photograph, without a flash—the light speeds the deterioration of the paper, you understand. I will leave you here. You must also understand, the guard at the top of the steps will search you to make sure you are not taking anything away."

"I wouldn't do that, Father," Ford told him in Spanish. "I'm a scholar, not a thief. I will submit to the search without protest."

"Yes, my son," the priest replied in English, smiling. "Your Spanish is very good grammatically, but you have that strong American accent!"

Ford chuckled. "Your English is better than my Spanish. I'll stick to that."

"I will leave you to your work, my son. The boxes numbered 1301 to 1321 are the ones you will be interested in. May God bless your efforts."

"Thank you, Father," Ford said, feeling a little twinge of guilt.

The priest left him. Ford took box 1301 to the table, sat, and carefully began to unpack it. This far below street level, everything was as quiet as a tomb—and smelled as dusty. The light was adequate, but not as bright as he would have preferred. Still, he had selected a digital camera that was extraordinarily good in low-light situations.

Valladolid had a long history, and much of it touched on Spanish exploration of the New World. In 1506, a worn-out Christopher Columbus, only 54 years old, had died in Valladolid, following four voyages to what he persisted in thinking of as Asia. He probably never realized he had discovered two major continents previously unknown to Spanish scholars.

His body traveled almost as much in death as he had in life: he was first buried in Valladolid, then his son had his body re-interred in Seville, in the south of Spain; later it was moved to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic (supposed to be the site of Columbus's first landfall in the New World), still later to Cuba, and finally, in 1898, his bones were returned to the cathedral in Seville. Ford remembered that Mark Twain had written about a museum where a guide showed him two human skulls, a big one and a small one. The guide had said the larger one was Columbus's skull. And the smaller one? "That is his skull when he was just a child."

In 1550 the Valladolid Debate had argued morality—was it justified, was it Christian, to enslave the native populations of the Americas? Christian or not, Spain exploited the mineral wealth of the New World and became the richest nation in all of Europe, if not the world.

And, of course, these . . . these documents, some unread for five hundred years! Ford carefully sorted them, patiently looking through thousands of pages. Nothing in the first box. Very little in the second—some financial records of Columbus's second voyage in 1493, with the pay record of a young Juan Ponce de Leon, who was among the 1200 colonists, explorers, and sailors on the expedition, which discovered Puerto Rico.

Eight hours into his researches, Ford struck pay dirt: a tattered, ribbon-wrapped bundle of time-browned handwritten papers. A somewhat more recent, and yellow, page identified the contents: _R. Delgado y Ramos, Registro de tres expediciones a América._ Beneath that, in ink faded to a coppery brown, was the notation _Introducido por Alfonso Márquez, S.J. / Mayo 1832. "_ Record of three expeditions to America," that said. "Catalogued by Alfonso Marquez, Jesuit, May 1832."

Carefully, Ford tried to untie the ribbon—and it crumbled to nothing. The dry air had not been kind to the fabric. Ford made a note of the accident. He saw why the cover sheet disagreed with his information about the manuscript's title: the first page, or perhaps even several pages, of Delgado's manuscript—they were not numbered—was missing. Ford began to read.

A long time later, a gentle hand shaking his shoulder awakened him. "My son," Father Mendez said kindly, "you have slept here all night!"

"Have I?" Ford asked, yawning and groping on the table for his glasses. He found them, put them on, and stood on numb legs. "I must have dozed off!"

"The guard should have awakened you," Father Mendez said. "He was to close the basement at midnight, but he is young and careless sometimes and must have forgotten. No harm done. Come, have breakfast with me. Refresh yourself. You may leave the papers as they are until you return. No one will disturb them."

"Thank you," Ford said. "Ah—first, is there a restroom upstairs?"

"Certainly," the priest said with a chuckle. "We are only Jesuits, you know—we are not angels!

* * *

Despite his lack of sleep—Ford had dozed sometime after five a.m., and Fr. Mendez had shaken him awake at seven—after a hasty breakfast of pastry and hot chocolate, Ford dived back into the underground vault.

He was filling his camera with photos. Before striking the sections he was looking for, he had found accounts of where treasure ships had sunk in storms, and, knowing that Stanley would be interested, he had photographed them. And then at last he discovered the exact pages he needed.

They were even better than he'd hoped. With halfway decent luck, he thought he could pinpoint the location he and Stanley were searching for. He photographed these pages, backed the photos up to not one, but two different memory cards, and then Fr. Mendez brought a new grosgrain ribbon to rebind the old manuscript. "No one has looked at these pages," he said, "for almost two hundred years! I am glad you found a use for them."

"I did, Father," Ford said. "Again, I must thank you for your generosity."

"We are scholars," the older man said with a gentle shrug. "We are the memory of humanity."

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, or about that. After saying his goodbyes, Ford strode through the streets of Valladolid feeling energized. However, when he opened the hotel room door, though, Stan grabbed him and pulled him inside. "Pack! We're leavin'!"

Ford had a sinking feeling. "Stanley—what have you done?"

Stan finished closing his suitcase, which lay on the bed. "I think the local cops are after me! Come on, come on, pack!"

Ford frowned and crossed his arms. "Did you rob the casino?"

"No! Come on, let's go!"

Instead of risking public transportation, they rented a car—though neither was a particularly good driver, and they definitely did not know Spanish traffic laws—and dropped it off in Madrid, having managed not to ding or scratch it. Not too badly, anyway. They updated their airline tickets at an extortionate rate and managed to get business-class seats on a flight to Heathrow airport in London.

"What did you _do_?" Stanley asked.

"Nothin'!" Stanley insisted. "Only I'm pretty sure they thought I was cheatin' at blackjack!"

"The casino—called the police?"

"Yup."

" _Were_ you cheating?"

"Stanford!" Stanley said as they took their seats on the airliner. "What a question!"

"Were you?"

"Nah. But I can count cards!"

"Isn't that illegal?"

"Not if you don't get arrested," Stanley said with a grin.

Stanford sighed. "How much did you lose?"

Looking depressed, Stanley said, "Well—ya remember that 1200 Euros?"

Stanford heaved a deeper sigh. "Yes. How much more?"

Muttering, Stanley said, "I kinda lost count, but I think it was about 122,972."

"Stanley!"

"And I didn't lose 'em," Stanley said, grinning. "Won 'em! Got 'em in my suitcase! By the way, when we get to London—I gotta buy me some new clothes."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Layovers**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

 **From the Journals of Stanford Pines:** _Tuesday, September 30: Wait, is it Monday, September 29? Good Lord, with all this crisscrossing of Europe, I've lost track of time! No, wait, my computer phone says it's Tuesday. We are in Bern, Switzerland, where we arrived by train early Friday morning. Coming here was Stanley's idea, not mine!_

 _He has opened a Swiss bank account with the proceeds of his gambling exploits in Spain, the Viage Casino in Brussels, and the Grand Casino Bern here. He's been complaining that "everybody takes a bite," and prudently has already earmarked a substantial IRS payment. But even taking out taxes, fees, and (I suspect) some not-insubstantial bribes, he still deposited more than $125,000—a good deal less than half of his total winnings! And he still has thousands in what he calls "walking-around money."_

 _I do NOT know how he does these things, though admittedly I advised him in Brussels and here, helping with the odds. The hardest thing is to persuade him to STOP before the casino operators get suspicious that he's up to something shady. However, as far as I can observe, he doesn't cheat. He simply, somehow, has incredible luck._

 _We are leaving for the USA tomorrow, flying from Bern to Amsterdam, and then to Atlanta, Georgia, and then to Miami, Florida. It will be an exhausting trip._

 _We are preparing. Before leaving for the airport, we will both disable our computer phones by removing the batteries (because cell phones, I learned from Stanley, can be tracked) and when we arrive in the States, we will purchase what Stanley tells me are "burner phones." These do not spontaneously combust, to my relief, but are so nicknamed because supposedly these are not tied to one person's identity and therefore are both disposable (I presume by fire) and also impossible to track._

 _This will be necessary because we must take steps to avoid publicity from the time of our landing in Atlanta on._

 _As I started to write earlier, we have almost an embarrassment of ready money now—Stanley has converted a substantial sum to American dollars and we have divided the amount. Frankly, I am more nervous carrying several thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills than carrying a computer phone!_

 _Anyway, Stanley proposes to exchange this money for prepaid credit cards in various denominations. The sum will finance our operations in Florida without our having to draw on our own money. Well, this is our money, technically, though I can't help feeling the way Stanley acquired it is somewhat questionable._

 _By the way, I wish I'd been able to advise Stanley before we left Spain—he took his winnings from the casino there in very small-denomination Euro notes, instead of the 500-Euro denomination. "I thought it'd be harder to track 'em," he told me, but the sheer bulk of it caused him to leave about half of his clothing behind so he could fit it all in his suitcase._

 _And by the way, here again he has INSANE luck! I had to open my bags passing through customs and the inspector went through every item very carefully—while STANLEY got waved through with scarcely a glance! He tells me it's because HE has an honest face, and I look like a crook!_

 _Anyway, my brother has a new wardrobe—which he purchased in Oxfam shops in London. These are used-clothing shops, and not only does nothing he bought fit him well, but some of those outfits must have been in vogue when the Beatles were the hottest musical group around. I hope he doesn't wear the white sequined bell-bottoms tomorrow for the flight._

 _Now I'm hesitant. Maybe I shouldn't write this, but—well, I'm not a superstitious man, just a scientist who knows the universe is stranger than we can imagine and who cannot be surprised by much. Now, I can't really believe that Stanley has some premonition of impending disaster, but still—_

 _Well, I'll just write it. After he opened his account yesterday afternoon, he handed me a sealed envelope. "In case something happens to me," he said, very seriously, "go to the Shack and first drop in four quarters and then enter that code into the snack machine next to the Staff Only door. The machine will pop out a key with a plastic fob. The fob has a coded number on it. Take that to my bank—it's also your bank—and it'll open a safe-deposit box. My will is in that box, along with a little black book that has all my different bank account numbers in it—'cept for the new one I just opened. I've coded that one on the same page as the machine code. You'll recognize it—it's one of the ciphers you used for your first three Journals. The will has all the instructions on what to do."_

" _Shouldn't I tell you where my will is?" I asked, trying to sound sarcastic._

 _He grinned. "Nah, I found it and photocopied it already. Gotcha covered."_

 _I don't know. It's silly of me, but I have a bad feeling now. Maybe we should just give up on this trip. Though the_ _old document insists the Fountain of Youth does exist, it includes dire warnings—at least three men lost their lives by becoming so young that they—well, they went back even beyond the baby stage, let's leave it at that._

 _Ponce de Leon himself was leading that small squad, the writer says, and he and the writer were the only two of the five men who discovered the spring (not actually a fountain) who did NOT over-indulge in the water. However, I noticed that, toward the end of the account, the paper seemed much less oxidized, and out of curiosity, once I had the information I sought, I read through the whole thing._

 _The final page of the document was dated-1801! The writer claims he took a vial of the water from the spring, and by judiciously sipping it at long intervals, he apparently—unless he is lying or a later writer was ingeniously forging his handwriting—he apparently restored his youth over and over and lived for more than 250 years! And for all I know, he may STILL be alive!_

 _However—this could all simply be a fantastic hoax. We'll see, I suppose. We have come this far, with considerable expense and effort. My curiosity is aroused, and we must push our investigation through. I wish we could let the kids know we're not suffering or in jail! I may drop them a postcard from the airport tomorrow. Just a note to say we're well and should be coming home before too long._

 _Unless Stanley has an objection to that, too._

 _We seem to be nearing our goal. I should be excited, not worried._

 _But—we can't control our feelings, can we?_

* * *

"Huh," Stanley said as they waited in a VIP lounge—their first-class tickets entitled them to that—in the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. "They tell me there's no legal gambling casinos in this state. What a dump!"

"Stanley," Ford said wearily, "You have enough money."

"Bite your tongue!" Stanley snapped. "Ya know what I could do if I won half a mil?"

"What?"

"Bet it all and try to win a million!"

"You are hopeless."

"I just said I hoped to win a million," Stanley said.

The lounge was carpeted and quiet and comfortable. A set of three floor-to-ceiling windows looked toward the distant buildings of Atlanta—it looked like a city dropped from the air into a jungly forest from here—and the soundproofing was so good that jets passing only a couple of hundred feet overhead flew silently.

They had bought lunch in the food court, though Stanford had his suspicions about the freshness of the shrimp cocktail, and now they had some time to kill before the Delta Airline flight to Miami left. Stanford felt an occasional stomach-fluttering anxiety about the cost of first-class tickets, but Stanley was buying them and kept assuring him "I got plenty in my primary account, don't fret about it. Anyways, I can start quiet wire transfers to build it back up now."

"I'll pay for my share when we get back to Gravity Falls," Ford told him.

"Eh, I'm not worryin' about it. I'm gonna go get some coffee, want some?"

"No, thank you."

While Stanley went to the urn, Stanford unfolded his newspaper—he had bought a _New York Times_ in a newsstand—and began reading a front-page story about a hacker attack on a giant bank and was visualizing a machete-armed group of thugs terrorizing tellers. Stan came back and sat down next to him. "Coffee ain't bad," he said.

"My stomach is a little queasy," Ford said. "Stanley, did it ever occur to you that gambling can be an addiction?"

"I don't _have_ to gamble, Poindexter," Stanley muttered, sipping from his china cup (one of the VIP perks). "I'm doin' fine with my music promoting, I've got the Mystery Mobile out on tour with a team I hired and it's making a good dollar, I've done like you said and invested some of my dough in legit stocks and businesses and I get a fair return. It's just that gambling is the fastest and easiest way to turn a dime."

"Yes, but there's a strong element of risk," Ford murmured, having read far enough to realize that "hacking" had more to do with computers than with edged weapons. "And in my opinion, you rely too much on sheer luck. You're bound to have a setback. When was the last time you lost big?"

Stan shrugged without evident concern. "Meh, I was on this TV quiz show once a couple-three years ago, ran up a big stake, and then totally blew it. But that wasn't _real_ gambling. I won't touch horse races, you know, or football betting, nothin' like that. If the game's got a rolling ball in a wheel, a bunch of cards on a table, or dice you can toss—that's where my luck comes in, not guessing missing letters or trying to figure out which nag can run faster than the others if the sun's at a fifty-degree angle and the track has a 38% saturation of water."

"You'll have to explain to me how you get your luck some time," Stanford returned.

"It's no secret, Ford. You spend thirty years being a con artist, you get to know people and you learn how to sense the odds. I'll admit I'm not as good as you—I mean, you can figure in your head and know there's a one per cent edge if you bet on black instead of red at the roulette wheel, and an edge that small wouldn't trigger my gambly senses—but me, I study a wheel before I decide whether it's got some little quirk I can count on before I bet. Also, I _can_ get a gut feelin' if the next poker hand's gonna be a good one, an average one, or a bust. Has to do with card memory and readin' the other suckers' faces." He sipped his coffee again, drinking deeply.

"One day you'll get over-confident and lose it all," Ford warned. He opened the paper to the crossword page and started to murmur.

'What are you doing?"

"Working the crossword."

"You're not writing anything down."

"In my head, Stanley. Hm. You see, 30 across must be 'tergiversator.' And that makes 12 down 'versify.' Simple."

"And you worry about me not being able to judge my chances when I gamble!"

His twin folded the paper again. "That was a difficult one. It took me two full minutes. Gambling? I tell you, one day you'll lose everything."

"Hah!" Stan set his empty cup down. "Happened to me a dozen times, brother! I've started from scratch over and over. Know what? It's kind of exhilarating to—"

Ford glanced at him, gray eyebrows raised in surprise. "Did you just use the word _exhilarating_ in a sentence? Correctly?"

Stan grinned. "Hey, the dum-dum act is more a pose than anything. I got no diploma to nail on my wall, but like I say, you spend thirty years scrabbling for money among the sharpies and you learn how to do it, you kinda acquire a little education along the way."

Ford took out his phone to check the time—he had given up wearing a watch, since the computer phone was so handy—and stared at the blank screen. "Oh, yes, no battery," he said.

"We'll pick up some temp phones in Miami," Stanley told him. "Meanwhile, if you were looking for the time, it's two-twenty. Feels wrong 'cause of jet-lag, but that's the time."

"How do you know that?"

Stan nodded toward the corner where the coffee urn stood. "Clock on the wall, Brainiac! We already checked in, so we don't have to go down to the gate for our plane to Florida for another half-hour or so. Even then we'll have to sit in the waiting area. I hate that almost as much as flying."

Ford folded his newspaper and glanced around. The VIP room was quiet—only two unformed attendants and, at the moment, no passengers except for the Pines twins. "Well—no one's near us, so maybe we'd better make a few plans."

Stanley held up his hand and began to count on his fingers. "Ahead of you. One. In Miami, we get ourselves a cheap used car, the junkier lookin' the better. We don't advertise that we got money, see. OK, going back to my old days, I have some connections in Miami, people I used to know who'll accommodate us and get us a decent ride that looks beat-up, and they won't hold us up on the price. Two. We buy our temp phones. Three. We drive up US 1 until we get to the place that we're gonna make our base. Four. We rent a vacation house—not luxury, not a dump, in the middle, inconspicuous. Lots of those rent-from-the-owner places in Florida, ya know. Five. We move in, live quiet, and start the search. What did I leave out?"

"Nothing, I suppose," Ford said. The silence between them stretched out, and then, impulsively, Ford said, "Stanley, I'm awkward at these things, but—thank you for coming along on this investigation. Moments like this take me right back to our childhood, and I think of, oh, exploring the beach and finding that wrecked sailboat. So—thank you."

"You don't have to thank me for every single little thing, but it stills sounds good." Stanley nudged him with his elbow. "Hey, Poindexter, speakin' of them old days—if it works out right—you just may get to revisit our childhood for real! Hah!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Searching**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

 **From the Journals of Dipper Pines:** _Saturday, October 11: Well, that's a relief! I just got an email from Soos:_

* * *

 _Dipper and Mabel, hiya, homies—_

 _I just like scanned in a picture of a postcard that came for you dudes yesterday in the mail. It's, like, from Dr. Stanford or some junk? Anyways, I think he forgot your address or something, because it came here, see? And I will put it in an envelope and send it on, but I wanted you to have a picture of it because I know you will want to read it before it comes._

 _Your pterodactyl bro,_

 _Soos_

 _PS-Mabel, Little Soos misses your tummy raspberries, and Waddles and Widdles are fine._

* * *

 _The postcard on one side had a photo of white-walled, red-roofed houses along a river bank and a bridge spanning the stream. On the message side, sure enough, Grunkle Ford had addressed it to "Dipper and Mabel Pines, The Mystery Shack, 618 Gopher Road, Gravity Falls, Oregon." Grunkle Ford can be absent-minded._

 _Anyway, the message, crammed into a small box and in minute handwriting, was "Dipper and Mabel, we are here just for today and will be flying to the States soon. You may not hear from us for a few weeks, but we are well and will be in touch. Warmly, Stanford."_

 _So even though it's not a lot of information, or any, really, I guess, that's a load off our minds. I ran and got Mabel, and she was relieved, too, except she grumbled, "Aw, he could have sent me a picture of Waddles and Widdles!"_

" _And even Little Soos," I suggested._

" _Yeah, him, too."_

 _Well—now we can stop worrying that Stan and Ford just dropped off the face of the earth!_

 _But I wonder what they were doing in Switzerland!_

* * *

A few days before Soos's email arrived, the elder Mystery Twins had established a home base two-thirds of the way between Miami and St. Augustine, near a small town called Ellismere. They had taken a rental house for a month—though the online ad claimed "easy beach access," the bungalow stood about eight miles inland from Citrus River Beach, the nearest Atlantic shoreline.

Still, it wasn't a bad little place to live, a former farmhouse, vintage about 1925, that once had stood in an orange grove. "Ya know," Stanley had said when they first drove under the carport, "I'll bet you anything this is a Sears-Roebuck house."

"A what?" Ford asked, holding his glasses as he peered at the small dwelling. It stood raised about five feet from the ground on a concrete-block underpinning that had been painted red. The house itself was battleship-gray with white trim and a red shingle roof—a tidy porch up a set of concrete steps, four square columns supporting the porch roof, and a low-pitched roof line. Drooping palm trees stood on either side of the house, and dusty oleanders sprouted in the scrubby lawn. "The mail-order company, you mean?"

Stan opened the car trunk and pulled out their suitcases. "Yeah, back before and during the Depression, Sears sold these house kits through their catalogue. You got all the materials to build the thing, some of it kinda pre-fab. Then you and your friends and family pitched in and built it. Sweat equity, you know. It's called a Craftsman house."

"Ordering a house from a catalogue," Ford mused. "Extraordinary."

"They were usually pretty well-made, though. Let's check out our temporary domain."

It wasn't bad, although in size it was . . . well, cozy. A Florida room up front with doors that opened into adjoining bedrooms, a bathroom and closets between the bedrooms, and to the left a compact kitchen and dining area. Exposed rafters overhead, and evidence that the place had been renovated, maybe in the 1980s: fairly contemporary electrical outlets and fixtures, kitchen appliances that looked serviceable, though they were all an avocado-green color. The interior paint looked pretty recent, probably a couple of years old, and it clearly was a house standing in the state of Florida: the corpses of three enormous palmetto bugs (boss roaches, Stan called them) lay crisp and dry inside the kitchen cabinets.

The house also offered cable TV and had a modem-router for computer hookup, so the owners were at least keeping up with the times. The air conditioner—Stan switched it on the moment he found the thermostat—was loud in the front room, more muffled in the dining area and bedrooms, and it seemed efficient, puffing out cooler, drier air that dispelled the faintly sour, stale atmosphere that had built up since the last renters had left.

Florida houses rarely have basements, and this one didn't, but the crawl space ("Stoop space," Stan pronounced it) beneath it almost qualified. "Probably they get some flooding here," Stan said. "That's why they set it up on the blocks like this." The low doorway to the under-house space was locked, but Stan solved that problem with a credit card slipped into the crack, forced the sticky door to open, and peered beneath the house. "Huh. Betcha there might be some antiques buried in here, if anything's in one piece." Old farm implements and odds and ends of furniture had been stored and forgotten there. He closed the door, and it relocked.

The dusty county road that fronted the small property was not heavily traveled; a thicket of scrub palmetto and pines backed the square yard and offered some privacy from a housing development that had taken over the former fruit grove. In the back yard, a couple of orange trees with greenish-orange fruits clinging to them might have been the only survivors of the orchard. The car the Pines twins had bought in Miami was a dinged-up, sun-faded gray eight-year-old Macaw, one of those nondescript midsize vehicles that you saw everywhere and forgot immediately—the kind bought in the thousands for rental fleets. However, it had an extra-powerful engine ("For quick getaways," Stan's Miami friend had helpfully hinted) and the vehicle had been kept in top mechanical condition.

Also, to Stan's vast relief, the air conditioner in the car worked fine—ever since they had stepped outside of the airport in Miami, Stan had been complaining about the heat and the humidity. "I thought _Spain_ was bad," he muttered. "This—this is like livin' in a sauna!"

They settled in, bought a stock of groceries at a small IGA not far from the house, and after resting for a day, they began their explorations. Ford had identified more than two dozen possible spots, ranging from the outskirts of St. Augustine, 150 miles to the north, to a cluster of lakes to their west, in approximately the middle of the state.

"We'll have a difficult time identifying landmarks," Ford cautioned. For one thing, the descriptions in the old manuscript were not that detailed; and for another, the 20th and 21st Centuries had changed the face of Florida almost beyond recognition, with the proliferation of theme parks and sprawling housing developments.

They checked out the closest possible sites, most to the south, over the first three days, but nothing panned out and nothing particularly exciting happened, apart from their having to halt on an obscure unpaved one-lane road because a twelve-foot-long alligator had parked himself diagonally across their path and showed no interest in going anywhere.

"Get out and shoo it off," Stanley said from behind the wheel.

" _You_ get out and shoo it off!" Stanford said.

"Chicken!"

"No," Stanford said with dignity. "It's just that he was here first."

After those three days of fruitless searching, they took a side trip, nothing to do with the quest, up to Winter Park, north of Orlando, and to an enormous complex of apartments called Serene Sunsets. They found Monica Pines in B-1183.

They rang the bell and heard an old woman's crickety voice calling, "Coming! Give me a minute."

When she opened the door, Stan's first thought was, _We got the wrong place._ Then he realized no, this was Monica, their brother Sherman's widow. She had shrunk with age. "My heavens!" she said, smiling, her wrinkled face showing delight, her eyes huge behind thick spectacles. "Stanford and Stanley! How long has it been? More than thirty years! Come in, come in. This is my little nest."

She moved with the aid of a walker. The apartment was neat, clean, orderly, comfortable-looking and as individual as an egg in a carton. _Temporary,_ Stan thought. An assisted-living facility did not expect its tenants to hang around long enough to establish any personal stamp on their living quarters.

They had iced tea on the small balcony, which looked out over a lake buzzing with motorboats. Monica spoke warmly of Shermy, her husband—the twins' elder brother—and sadly of how he had contracted a rare blood disease that took him away much too early. She showed them photos of the time when Dipper and Mabel and their parents had visited her, years before.

"You must be lonely," Stanford said kindly.

She laughed. "Not at all! My heavens, I have dozens of friends here! And, to tell you the truth, I've always been a private sort of person. I'm not much of a family-oriented one, you know. Oh, I enjoyed the visits I've had from little Mason and Mabel and their folks, but—well, after three days I was ready to send them back to Oregon! My son even gets on my nerves, you know. But he calls every Sunday just to check on me and chat, even if he's off on the other side of the world! He and our daughter-in-law have visited me twice in the last few summers, and he's offered, oh, I don't know how many times, to fly me out to Oregon. I've got my roots here, though, and here I plan to stay!"

She was close to eighty and looked older. They visited until it was almost time for her to go to her bridge game, and then they left her in peace. "Man," Stan said, "she used to be such a looker! Remember when we were kids and her and Shermy were dating?"

"Yes, I do," Ford replied, sounding a little sad. "Stanley—I hope we don't wind up in a place like this!"

"Well, that's kinda up to us, ya know," Stanley told him.

* * *

The next week, venturing north, they hit the first clue that seemed to bear promise. Ford had dived into a library, as usual—a college library this time—and emerged after several hours with more photos in his camera.

The twins had settled for the day in a motel, and Ford found his brother sprawled on his bed there, watching a baseball game on TV. Ford switched the game off.

"Hey!" Stanley said.

"Right now," Ford said, "it's more important to look at this." He started his laptop and downloaded an image for display on the screen. He and Stan sat in the two chairs, drawn close to the motel-room desk on which the computer rested.

"What am I lookin' at?" a squinting Stanley, who was wearing a gaudy red and yellow Hawaiian shirt and jeans, grumbled. "Looks like pea soup with three blueberries floatin' on top!"

"An aerial photograph of a place not too far northwest of where we are right now. These are small lakes," Ford said, indicating the blueberries. "Ponds, really. They form the points of an almost perfect equilateral triangle, a mile on a side. You know what a _cenote_ is?"

"Hundred-dollar bill," Stan said immediately, leaning forward, a grin spreading on his face. "Go on, I'm listenin'!"

"Hundred—no, Stanley, that, I believe, is a 'c-note' in the vernacular. A _cenote_ is a circular or nearly circular pond created when limestone weakens and collapses into a sinkhole. They're common in Mexico—and in Florida. Delgado mentions passing three such ponds as the five-man party hacked its way through dense undergrowth, following directions suggested by local natives. Not too far past the three ponds, they found rising land—not really hills, because those are vanishingly rare in Florida, but mounded ground, anyway—and the Fountain, he says, was there, 'In a kind of cave.' I am supposing that might be another sinkhole. Cenotes invariably have pools of water at the bottom. However, there's a problem."

"Ain't that always the way?" Stan asked. "Who do I have to kill?"

"Not _that_ kind of problem!" Ford snapped. "Though this is the first landmark that agrees with the description in the _Cuentas_ , the party couldn't have come straight from the ships anchored off the coast—the St. John's river stands in between. Delgado makes no mention of crossing a river."

"Maybe they navigated down the river," Stan suggested. "It's big enough, right?"

"Well—maybe in a small boat. However, surely—wait, though. It occurs to me that the manuscript is missing pages. I noticed about six breaks in the continuity, and there could be more. It's just possible that a few pages have disappeared that might mention such a river exploration—the sheets aren't numbered, and if one section ended at the end of a sentence, and, say, five pages have vanished and the sixth page begins with a fresh paragraph—that just might explain it."

"Right!" Stan said. "Or—this might be the wrong three ponds."

Ford went out to the car and brought back a faux-leather portfolio big enough to contain a full-sized newspaper, unfolded. Instead it held maps. He shuffled through and pulled one out, a large-scale black-and-white chart. "Geologic Survey Map," he muttered, spreading it out on the floor. He added a second map, this one in color. "And a large-scale relief map. Let me see . . . here we go. These are the three ponds, see? And westward of them—hmm. Another problem."

Ford had knelt on the floor, hovering over the spread-out maps. Stanley stood behind him. "And what is it now?"

"Well—all this land here—several hundred acres, and the very site we'd need to search—it's marked 'Private.'"

"So, we can't trespass?"

"I'd prefer," Ford said, getting up again, "not to. Let's pack up and get moving—this is in the next county over. I'll visit the courthouse there and check into land records. We can probably learn who owns this land, and then we can seek permission to enter the area."

"Yeah, right. We're just gonna ask nicely if we can check to see if they got any magical fountains layin' around."

"No, obviously we'll need a cover story."

"We represent the U.S. Bureau of Endangered Birds," Stanley said immediately. "Conducting a survey to ascertain he population levels of, oh, nine species of birds. We'll say we just need to drive slowly through the territory, stopping from time to time to peer around with binoculars. We'll tell 'em we won't even need to get out of the car. We'll be closed-in counters of the bird kind! Ah? Ah?"

"That sounds very strange to me," Ford said.

"Aw," Stanley told him, "you're no fun!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Crossing the Line**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

They didn't go with the bird idea, but with a closely-related one. Stanley explained, "See, even in this modern age of going on the computer an' Goggling, people nearly always believe what they see with their own eyes, so all's we have to do is design and write up a few things, find a Copier Store, and print up a few copies."

And that is why and how they became representatives of the National Association of University Departments of Biology, with magnetic signs attesting to that on both front doors of their old Macaw, business cards that identified them as Doctors Ian and Evan Metlock, and photocopies of what looked like a letter on what looked like official letterhead that attested they were reptile experts looking for invasive non-native species of snake, particularly constrictors, for capture and relocation.

The letter also helpfully provided a telephone number for those wishing to double-check the credentials. "What happens when someone calls, Stanley?" Ford asked.

Stan chuckled. "Let 'em call! They get connected to a burner phone number—not the one I'm using, but a backup. Wanna hear what you get?" He pulled a phone from his pocket—a red one—pressed the speakerphone icon, and then played a recorded greeting.

A sort of stilted female voice said, "You have reached the Florida NAUDB invasive snake hotline. Due to underfunding, all our representatives are currently out responding to the reptile emergency in the state. If you have sighted a potentially dangerous snake, hang up now and call 911. For all other questions, record your name and a telephone number where you can be reached when you hear the tone. You can expect to hear from us before the end of the business day."

"Who recorded that?" Stanford asked, raising his gray eyebrows in surprise.

"I did!"

"No, I mean the woman who read that," Stanford said.

Stanley rolled his eyes. "It's a computer voice, Ford!"

Stanford blinked. "Oh—it's remarkably convincing! But—who will return the calls?"

Stanley put the phone back into his pocket. "Did I _say_ anybody will return the calls"

His face grew a little pink as Ford snapped, "Yes!"

Stanley clucked his tongue. "No, there's where you're wrong, Poindexter! I had the computer voice say they can _expect_ to hear back. Come on, Ford, people got a right to expect anything! This is America!"

Stanford pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes. "That is so close to being an outright lie! Why do I think this is going to get us arrested? Do you really expect that people will fall for this—this scam?"

"Who's gonna argue with getting their yard de-snake-ified?" Stanley asked with a grin.

"Yes, but what are we going to do if we meet an actual snake?" Stanford asked.

With a casual shrug, Stan replied, "Dunno about you, but I'm planning on setting a new land speed record."

In the public documents he had researched, Ford had discovered the name of the area they wanted to examine: "The Solana tract." As they drove west toward it on a mostly clear morning—just a few fleets of small puffy white clouds sailing high overhead—he reported this to Stanley. He finished with,"This situation is extraordinarily unusual. As nearly as I can judge, this section of land has belonged to the same family as far back as registered titles go."

"Homebodies, so what?" Stan asked, leaning back, one hand on the wheel. He was again wearing a short-sleeved shirt, khaki, like the jeans both he and Ford wore, so as to look more like official investigators. The morning was turning hot already, and the car's air conditioning, cranked way up, whistled coolly out of the vents. "Go on, what's unusual about a settled old family?"

Ford, whose khaki shirt matched Stan's—he rarely wore short sleeves, because compassionate people tended to ask about the many scars on his upper arms—shook his head. "Stanley, this is Florida. Land changes hands often in this state. The Solana tract title goes back to 1821, when the United States acquired Florida from Spain. In other words, this title goes back as far as there are legitimate land titles around here. And even before that, the property was held by a Spanish land grant—also in the name of the Solana family."

A kamikaze bug whirled in and with a startling crack! splatted on the windshield, and Stan used the washer and wipers to spread the wealth around in streaky yellow arcs. "What a mess! So the land title goes back for centuries. That sounds promising," he observed.

Ford instinctively ducked. "Look out for that bird!"

A blindingly white snowy egret came coasting in across their path, heading for a landing in a marshy, reedy area to the left of the road. The bird glided past only inches from the windshield and rocked in the turbulence of the near-miss. "Calm down, I knew we weren't gonna hit it," Stanley said casually.

Stanford shook his head as he settled back in his seat again. "The birds around here grow so big!"

"Meh, I've seen bigger in Gravity Falls."

"Yes, but you expect that there." Ford turned on the radio, but got nothing except staticky country music and indecipherable rap—just the two stations—and switched the sound off again.

Stanley said, "OK, let's use this time to rehearse a little. People ask you, who are you?"

"Um, I say I'm Evan . . . what's the last name?"

"Metlock, Stanford, for cryin' out loud! Say it again! And tack the 'doctor' on, that makes it respectable."

With wounded dignity, Stanford said, "Very well. My name is Dr. Evan Metlock, herpetologist—"

"Whoa, whoa! Don't pad your part. What's that last word?"

"Herpetologist, Stanley. It's a scientist, a biologist who specializes in the study of reptiles and amphibians."

"Huh. And snakes are one of them, I guess. I take it back, go on and use that. But who would even know that word?"

Stanford sighed. "Anybody who watches the National Natural Channel. They've broadcast tons of documentaries about pythons and constrictors being captured in Florida."

Stan nodded his satisfaction. "OK, good enough, never watch that channel myself, but that's a fair answer. Say that long word again so I can be one of them, too."

When Stanford had rehearsed, Stan said, "My turn. OK, listen to this." He changed the tempo and pitch of his voice a little, speaking more deliberately, and in a slightly lower-than-normal tone: "I'm Dr. Ian Metlock, chairman of the herpetology department at the Flammfil Institute—"

"What?" Stanford asked. "How did you get to be _chairman_?"

"Tenure an' crafty academic politics, of course! Come on, Ford, let me have this one!"

In a disgruntled tone, Stanford said, "Very well—but why _chairman_?"

"'Cause I outrank you and can make you do all the talkin'."

"Of course, people will be curious that identical twins went into the same field."

"Nah. They'll just think it's interesting. So, we both got our doctorate degrees at, oh, McGucket State, right? And we went into the same job . . .."

"I hope you realize that 'Ian' and 'Evan' are just two British-isles variants of the name 'John," Stanford said.

"Eh, they mean 'John,' so what? We're obviously twins. Speakin' of which, I'll need to take a whiz soon. Look for a gas station that has an Evan I could use."

And so, bickering a little and practicing their backstory and equipped with documentation supporting their ruse, they sped westward. . ..

* * *

 **From the Journals of Stanford Pines:** _Wednesday, October 15: The Solana tract is maddeningly difficult of access! The route we drove in on bifurcates, the main road continuing west-southwest and another branch angling off north-northwest. We continued the second way, since the tract lay off to our left._

 _We slowed to a standstill when we came to another three-way intersection, with one road veering directly west, eventually to the Gulf of Mexico I suppose, and the one we were on making a turn to the northeast. It's only a secondary route, narrow and in need of repaving. We had seen no more than a half-dozen cars in all on our last ten-mile stretch._

 _Now, the intersection I just mentioned is, if the maps are correct, the ONLY spot where the Solana tract meets a roadway. A narrow, dusty, white unpaved drive leads directly east, into the tract itself—but a stout, padlocked iron gate closes it off, with a sign on it in both English and Spanish warning that beyond was private property and that trespassers would be prosecuted On either side, a tall chain-link fence stretched away, gradually concealed by tall shrubs and gigantic weeds._

 _The sign, by the way, also warns the area is protected by security guards. The main feature of the sign: great big red letters that say both DANGER and PELIGRO. Yet, everything beyond the gate looked peaceful and we saw no guards. We could not get close. There was not even enough room between the gate and the highway for us to park the car, and the narrow shoulder bordered a three-foot wide ditch full of scummy water, so there was no possibility of pulling off there, either._

 _However, we saw that the road leading west passed over a concrete bridge and we spotted what looked like a parking area near the bridge, so we made the turn, drove there and pulled into a graveled parking area beneath the shade of some tall, massive live-oak trees, their branches festooned with greenish-gray Spanish moss swaying in a muggy breeze._

 _The gravel crackled beneath the tires as Stan parked as far in the shade as he could get. Ahead of us, we saw a boy, not even a teen, sitting on the bank of the small river that flowed beneath the bridge. He was fishing. He wore a faded plaid shirt, overalls, and a yellow straw hat and was barefoot._

" _Kid should be in school, this time of day," Stanley observed as we rolled down the windows for a breath of steamy air._

" _I wonder if the car would be safe if we left it parked here," I said. "It's only about a hundred yards back to the intersection and the gate. We could walk that far and see if there's a fence around the whole property. If not, we could at least do a little preliminary exploring."_

 _To my surprise, the young man glanced back at us as though he had heard me, though I spoke quietly enough, and then he climbed up the bank and approached us. "Don't go on the Solana land," he said in a treble voice as he came close to the car. "They don't like strangers."_

 _I had the strangest sense that I'd seen the boy before, but that was impossible. He clearly was a product of Florida—tanned, very skinny, with high cheekbones that suggested Native American ancestry and a sharp chin. He was either a platinum blonde, or else the sun had faded his eyebrows to a pale yellow. He must have been in a recent fight—his left eye was blackened, purple and swollen nearly shut, and the right eye, a striking bright blue, had a kind of humorous gleam._

 _Before I could speak to him, Stan leaned out the driver's window (the boy had approached on his side) and asked, "Why ain't ya in school?"_

 _The kid laughed. He came closer and leaned against the car. "And why does a scientist with some University outfit use the word 'ain't'?"_

" _Who are you?" I asked the youngster, speaking across Stanley to do so._

" _My name's Bergas," he said, smiling as if he were telling us a joke or a secret, and then he spelled it. "Mean anything to you?"_

 _I shook my head. "We're looking for invasive snakes—"_

" _No, you're not," the boy said, laughing again. "You two are on some kind of mission, I can tell! But that's OK. Keep your secrets. You don't have to tell me anything. Let me do you a big favor, though, and tell YOU a secret: they keep big, vicious dogs on the Solana property that are trained not to bark until after they rip an intruder to pieces. Those are the guards the sign mentions."_

" _So how do we get onto the property?" Stanley asked._

" _I wouldn't myself, but if you really want to, just make the guy who lives there curious about you. You'll get an invitation then. Maybe the kind you can't turn down!" With that, the boy pushed himself away from the car, went back, and scrambled down the bank of the river again._

 _Stan and I looked at each other, and then we got out of the car simultaneously, stepping into an incredibly oppressive pre-noon heat and humidity. Stan said, "What th'—"_

 _Because no one was sitting on the bank of the river, which flowed slowly and looked brown and thick with suspended mud. We walked forward to stand beside the bridge abutment. No one was hiding under the bridge or on the far side of it. In less than five seconds, the boy had somehow vanished._

" _Creepy," Stanley said. "I just realized, when the boy was fishing, he had this cane pole, but when he climbed up the bank, it was gone. And it's strange, but somehow I thought the name Bergas sounded familiar."_

" _I had that feeling, too," I confessed._

" _Tell you what," Stanley muttered, "according to the map, there's a little town about five miles ahead. Let's see if we can find a motel and we'll strategize a little. I'm startin' to have my doubts about the snake approach. Also, I could really use a cool shower about now."_

" _Where could Bergas have gone?" I asked._

 _Stanley shrugged. "Who knows? Dove into the river and turned into a fish! An alligator came up and ate him. No telling. What we need right now is some quiet space, Wi-Fi, and air conditioning!_

 _I agreed, and we drove until we spotted a newish motel off to the left, the Reedy River Motor Inn. The theme is heavily tilted toward fishing, and the motel flourishes especially when bass tournaments are underway, it seems. We arrived when none was in session and only a third of the rooms were occupied, and by our request we rented a fairly expensive unit on the ground floor and at the far end, with no one in the room behind us, beside us, or above us, and at the clerk's suggestion, for the sake of silence we took the unit facing away from the highway._

 _It is a nice room, clean, quiet, and decorated with the fish motif again: a plaster bass on one wall, paintings of fishermen in boats or on land, some vintage framed black and white photos of what I suppose are champion-level bass catches held by smiling fishermen_

 _Stanley is working on the laptop, while I take time to bring my Journal entry up to this disappointing development._

* * *

"Interesting," Stanley said suddenly. "Sixer, come look at this!"

Ford, who had been resting on one of the two beds, writing in his Journal—Dipper would have smiled to see that, since it was exactly the posture he usually took when making entries in his own—closed the book, got up, and came to sit beside Stan. "Aerial photo?"

" _The_ aerial photo," Stanley corrected. "The only one I can find online of the Solana land. Dates from 1922!"

"That's unlikely," Stanford told him. "The USGS conducts aerial surveys every few years."

"Not over the Solana tract, they don't. But lookie here—there's a house right in the middle of all that untouched wilderness."

Stanford leaned closer. "It looks more like a fortress."

The grainy, black-and-white image did not give much detail, but from what they could see, the structure was a perfect square, possibly built around a central courtyard, and nearly as big as a moderate shopping mall. "Might be some kind of government facility," Stanley suggested.

"Perhaps," Ford said reluctantly. "Yet—somehow I don't think so. A land title that goes back to 1821 and even earlier? Intense secrecy? Guard dogs? Something tells me that we must be on the right track."

"Yeah, but this could be the wrong tract! Hah!"

Ford adjusted his glasses and bent close to peer at the computer screen. "Any sign of a cenote?"

"See for yourself. You'll have to scroll to the right and also down to see it all. This picture don't cover everything, though. What you see here is all you get—the house kinda in the upper left, and then just trees and what might be a few small creeks. Hard to tell, though."

Ford tried some other avenues—but the satellite imagery did not focus in closely enough over that stretch of land, and the building showed up only as a small gray speck (puzzling, since over the town of Gainesville they could zoom in close enough to identify makes and models of cars on the streets).

"The guy who owns this must have a hefty political pull," Stan suggested.

"And an intense desire for privacy," Ford murmured.

Ford tried looking up the name online and sighed. "It turns out that Solana is one of the oldest family names in Florida. There are thousands of them! And the Solanas go back a long way into the state's history."

Stan had rolled his chair back and sat leaning back with his hands behind his head and his big feet propped onto the desk near the laptop. "Any of 'em in this neck of the palm trees?"

"None that I can find. But only so many public records are available on the internet."

"Huh. OK, wild idea, Goggle the name 'Bergas.'"

Ford did. "It's Catalan in origin," he said.

Stanley yawned. "Where's that?"

"Well, the _territory_ is Catalonia, and it's in northeastern Spain. The language is Catalan—related to Spanish in that both of them evolved from vulgar Latin from about the ninth century AD."

"Vulgar, huh? What, did they have a lot of words for—"

" _Linguistically,_ " Ford cut in, "the term 'vulgar' only means the popular language, that spoken by common folk, as opposed to Church Latin, classical Latin, or educated Latin."

"Takes the fun out of it," Stan observed.

"As I was saying, Spanish and Catalan are related through Latin, though the speakers of Catalan claim it's the older of the two. Anyway, in Catalan 'berga' is a place name that means 'mountainous' or 'high.' It's also a family name, with and without the terminal 's.' and can also be a given name. It's kin to the Spanish name 'Vargas,' which can mean 'hills' or 'slopes.'"

Stan sat up, putting his feet down, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Spain again. So, the kid has that connection, too. He didn't look Spanish to me, though."

"Don't obsess about him," Ford advised. "What did he suggest we do?"

"Make the owner of the place curious about us," Stanley said.

"And how do we do that?"

Stan thought for a moment. "I think I might have a plan."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Invitation**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

Stanford Pines felt more than a little silly. He had never been a fisherman, but Stan had led him through a sporting-goods store buying clothes and equipment, and now he wore a blue short-sleeved work shirt with a many-pocketed vest over that, blue jeans, and boots. Stan bought a red plastic clip-on waterproof case big enough for a wallet.

Each brother also bought a soft tan cloth fishing hat, with an extended bill like a trucker's cap on steroids but also a long flap in the back to protect the neck from sunburn, and on the front, since the shop offered free monogramming with an outrageously expensive hat, the number 6 in red fabric with a black border for Ford. Stan's get-up was similar, but a little different—a yellow shirt under the vest, and his fishing hat bore a black P with a red border.

The fishing equipment they picked up was not as expensive as the clothing: two rods, two tackle boxes (which they did not fill with tackle), and a package of assorted supplies—basic lures, hooks, sinkers, floats, stringers, just this and that. Ford pointed out the incongruity of buying clothing that cost up into the hundreds and equipment that was less than fifty.

"Relax, Ford," Stan told him. "We ain't fishing for real—this is camouflage. But just in case—"

He led his brother to the customer-service desk and they filled out applications for three-day freshwater fishing licenses, nonresident. That cost them another thirty-four dollars, but when they left the Game of Fishes store, they were all equipped and, as Stan said, "street-legal."

That evening they ate at a not-too-good truck stop near their motel, drove five miles into a town to do a little shopping, bought a small cooler at the gas station, raided the motel machine for ice, and Stan sat down with pen and paper to hone the plan, as he said. Ford proofread what he had written and shook his head. "Sounds a little like a threat," he said.

"Help me tone it down some, then," Stan said. "But leave the implication, ya know. Just to set up a little bit of doubt in the guy's mind."

Although the note wasn't all that long, they labored on it the way Gustave Flaubert had once agonized on whether to include or omit a single comma. It took about two hours total before both brothers felt satisfied:

* * *

 _We will not trespass on your land, but you will want to speak to us. We have visited a certain place in Spain and have discovered interesting maps and documents. We will just mention the name Delgado._

 _If you wish to maintain your privacy, please speak to us. We make a solemn promise not to reveal what we know or what you may tell us to anyone._

 _If you don't care about your privacy, you need not respond to this note._

 _You may reach us at this phone number . . .._

* * *

The Pines twins' last squabble was which number to write. "I'm more diplomatic," Ford pointed out. "And I have a better grounding in the historical background than you do."

"I'm more to the point," Stan countered. "And I'm a better judge of character than you are. Add to that, I have a first-rate BS detector built right into my brain. I can tell right off if the guy is stringin' us along or putting his cards on the table."

It finally ended in compromise: They used Ford's phone number, but Ford said he would put the phone on speaker mode when—and if—a call came.

They got up before the sun the next day, drove to the bridge, parked again, and instead of fishing, they walked back to the gate. It was tall, taller than either of them, with broad metal bars and uprights, leaving square openings maybe six inches on a side.

Ford carried the cooler—otherwise they had nothing in their hands. Stan hunkered down beside the gate. "Ugh, my knees! Flying on those fershlugginer airplanes did a real number on 'em! Let's see how the guard works."

He picked up a stick and began to thwack it against the ground, patiently, repetitively. Now and then he gave a shrill whistle.

"I feel exposed standing here," Ford complained. "What if a car came by and someone saw us?"

"Pretend you're bolting something onto the gate," Stan returned.

"How do I do that?"

"Turn your back to the road. Put your right elbow out. No, bend your arm. Now mime like you've got a monkey wrench in your right hand, and make pumping actions with your arm, like you're tightening a bolt. Yeah, like that. OK, you can stop unless a car comes past."

None did, and in the earliest dawn twilight, when they could just begin to see the landscape, they realized that the driveway was visible for only about a hundred feet before it faded out in ground mist. "This isn't going to work," Ford said.

"We'll see. It's early yet."

No sooner had he spoken than from out of the mist a black shape coalesced, or seemed to. "That's a monster!" Ford said with a gasp.

Stan chuckled. "Nah, it's a Doberman. Good-looking dog, too. Hey, boy! How ya doin', buddy?"

The dog did not even growl, but came right up to the fence and bared his teeth. He wore a blue collar, the tag jangling against the fence as the animal thrust its long muzzle through one of the openings and snapped its teeth.

"Good boy!" Stan said admiringly. "On the job! That's a good dog. Want a treat?" He reached for the tackle box, popped it open, and took out a plastic baggie that had been resting on ice. It held cut-up chunks of beef. Stan fished one out. "You hungry, big guy?"

He offered the meat on the flat of his palm and cautiously moved it close to the dog's nose. The bare teeth gleamed, the black lips quivered—and then the nose twitched. The Doberman's hindquarters began to wag. The dog whined, then Stan gave it the chunk of beef, which it wolfed down.

"Good boy!" Stan said as the big dog licked its chops and tilted its head expectantly. "Still hungry? That was just a snack to a big guy like you! Here you are."

By the fourth chunk of meat, the dog was allowing Stan to reach through the fence. As it gobbled, it let him scratch its ears. "Yeah, they say don't trust a dog with orange eyebrows, but you're a big old softy, aren't ya? Rip anybody's arm off recently? Here, I got something else for you."

A couple more treats, and Stan reached both hands through the gate and clipped the wallet carrier onto the dog's blue collar with a carabiner shackle. The dog didn't seem to notice, but whined for more treats.

"You deserve 'em all," Stan said, giving him the last of the meat. "We're gonna go fishing now. See you later, probably."

The dog stood at the gate watching his new friends cross the highway and then walk toward the bridge on the far side. Insofar as a dog can form coherent thoughts, it was thinking, "Good human! Nice human! Give Ripper food! Good boy!"

And when it became apparent that no more meat was forthcoming, an alert but happy Ripper trotted obediently back down the drive to his home, the tall gray house in the mist. Soon the four other Dobermans ran out, greeted him, sniffed him, and then quarreled with him about his getting treats when they had received none, but, a bit like Stan, Ripper refused to fight with them and contentedly thought, "Forget you guys! I got mine!"

* * *

Ford and Stan sat where the day before the kid, Bergas, had sat fishing. Each had a line in the water, baited with identical worms. Ford complained, "This may be the most boring pastime ever invented by humankind."

"Izaak Walton said, 'God never made a more quiet and innocent recreation than fishing,' Sixer. You gotta be philosophical."

"Izaak Walton can have it," Ford grumbled. "Perhaps it's conducive to quiet contemplation of how boring it is, but I think it's deadly dull."

"Speak for yourself, Poindexter," Stan said as he reeled in another catch. This one was not quite as big as his hand, and he deftly unhooked it and tossed it back into the water before re-baiting his hook and rinsing his hands in river water. "Another runty little bluegill."

"How many species have you caught?" Ford asked.

Stanley chuckled. "Three. Five fish, three species. Two bluegills, two small bass—think they call that kind sunshines around here—and that catfish awhile back. That one surprised me, they're usually bottom feeders."

"Why haven't I had a bite?"

"Cause you don't hold your mouth right!" Stan said. "Hey, did I ever tell you about when I met the luckiest kid in the world at ice fishin'?"

"I don't think so."

Stan settled back with the rod in his hands, the line hanging into the water at an angle, the bait drifted by the current. "So, I was ice-fishing one winter day out in Minnesota, weather about ten degrees, me bundled up to my eyebrows, and I auger my hole, right? And I drop a line in and wait and wait and wait, and nothin', and the hole freezes over twice so I have to clear it. So, then this kid about ten, twelve years old, he comes along, borrows my auger, and he makes himself a hole about twenty feet off. He squats down beside it, and in two minutes, bam! He pulls out a good-sized walleye. Strings the fish up, drops the line, pulls in a bigger one! And when he catches the third walleye in two minutes, and me with nothin' after three hours, I can't stand it!"

"You stole his fish," Ford accused.

"I did not! There's no honor among thieves, but fishermen are sloppin' over with it! Anyhow, I walk over to him and I ask, politely, how he's managing to catch so many. Know what he says?"

"What?"

"Oo ah oo ee ee urs arb."

"I beg your pardon?" Ford asked.

Stan repeated, "Oo ah oo ee ee urs arb."

Frowning, Ford asked, "What does that even mean?"

Grinning, Stan said, "That's the exact same thing I asked this kid! And he goes—" Stan mimed cupping his hand and spitting something into it—"P-too! You got to keep the worms warm! Hah!"

Ford frowned. "You mean he kept the worms inside his mouth? Unless he took steps to sterilize them first, that strikes me as unsanitary."

Stan's grin faded. "You're a disappointment, Poindexter. It's funny! It ain't real, it's a joke!"

Ford laughed. "Oh, I see! Hah. Got to keep the worms warm. Very funny, Stanley, but you should have told me at the beginning that it was a joke."

"I'll make a sign to hold up next time," Stan said. "And I'll point at you when it's time to laugh."

They fished in silence for a few minutes, neither of them getting even a nibble, and then Ford's phone went off. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and said, "ID says Private Number." He turned on the speaker. "Yes?"

A soft voice—Stan thought it was a woman's—asked, "Are you the gentleman who sent a message by way of one of the dogs?"

"Yes," Ford said. "I'm one of them. My brother is with me, too."

"And you claim to have visited a certain place in Spain?"

"That is correct," Ford said.

"Please identify it and tell me with whom you spoke there."

Ford glanced at Stan, who shrugged and nodded. "We did research at the _Biblioteca de Antiquites_ in Valladolid. I spoke with Father Mendez, the curator of ancient manuscripts. Do you want to know what documents I consulted?"

"If you wish to tell me."

"Primarily two: the _Colección de tablas de descubrimientos españoles en el Nuevo Mundo_ and Delgado y Ramos's _Cuenta de tres expediciones."_

"Delgado's account. That still exists? Surprising. I will need to make another telephone call now, and then I will call you back. Wait, please."

The line went dead. "I wonder who she is," Stan said.

"I don't know. The voice didn't sound threatening, did it?"

"Not angry, either. Maybe a little bit put out," Stan told him.

"What do we do?"

"Try to catch another fish and wait. Here, my hook's baited. Toss it in and I'll show you how to hold your mouth."

In three minutes, Ford finally caught his first fish, another bluegill all of four inches long. "It felt bigger," he said when he pulled the flopping fish out of the brown water.

Stan took hold of it, gingerly, avoiding the sharp barbs on its back, and gently removed the hook. "Yeah, these little guys put up a strong fight for their size. There ya go—run and tell your big brothers to come around!" he tossed the fish into the river, and with a flirt of its tail it sped away. Stan reached down and rinsed his hands. "Down south here I think they call them bream. Or sunfish. You get a big enough one, it's a thrill to pull him in. And they cook up nice, too."

Ford's phone trilled and he answered it. The same voice said, "You may enter the grounds. Will you drive in?"

"We can," Ford said. "Our car is right here, on the shoulder of the highway at the bridge just down the way from the gate."

"Oh, then you're very close and I won't need to kennel the dogs. A boy will come out to unlock the gate. Be sure it closes and locks behind you. If you fail to do that, I will know."

"Certainly," Ford said.

The brothers repacked their fishing gear in the Macaw and Stan did a good three-point turn—making Ford nervous at turning in the highway like that, but as Stan pointed out, they could see a long way in both directions, and all that morning only about half a dozen vehicles had passed—and as they drove toward the gate, they saw a kid puttering up on a Vespa. He had bushy black hair and dressed punky, as Stan called it—black tee shirt, torn jeans, black motorcycle boots. His hair reached nearly to his shoulders.

He did something to the gate from the inside, and it swung open. The kid didn't wait to guide them, but hopped on the Vespa and sped back down the drive.

"Here goes," Stan said. He paused at the STOP sign on the cross-highway, then drove through the gate. Ford turned to crane his head backward. "It's closing again," he said. "Better let me jump out and make sure it's locked. We promised."

Stan put the car in park. "I made friends with the doggy. Better be me."

He got out, glancing around nervously, but no Dobermans were in sight. He crunched back to the gate and found the electric lock had re-engaged. He rattled it to be sure. On the gatepost, a red light shone steady beside the word _Bloqueado._

With the zings, chirps, and buzzes of a million insects in his ears, Stan walked to the car and climbed back behind the wheel. "It's _bloqueado_ ," he told Ford.

"That means—"

"Locked, I know," Stan told him as the car rolled slowly forward again. "I spent some time in a Latin American finishing school."

"Really?" Ford asked, blinking behind his spectacles.

"Yeah," Stan said gruffly. "It was in Colombia."

The driveway began to rise, and they went over a low ridge. Then the house appeared before them, still a half-mile away, at the summit of another broad, rounded ridge. "Looks like a prison," Ford said.

Square, with a red-tile roof, three stories tall, with walls of smooth concrete or plaster—the gray made it hard to tell which—the house had no windows at all on the ground floor, and very narrow, tall ones on the two floors above. None looked wide enough for a grown man to squeeze through. One dark archway broke the blank walls of the ground floor, with the white Vespa just visible inside. Stanley parked near it, and he and Ford got out.

The archway led into a short tunnel—only ten feet deep or so—and to a massive iron-bound wooden door. It opened as they got close, and the same kid who'd opened the gate said, "Come in. Up the stairway, please."

The door opened into a foyer that went nowhere—only a narrow flight of stairs leading up into darkness.

"Who are we meeting?" Stan asked.

"You'll find out at the top of the stairs."

Ford stared hard at the teenager. "We heard your voice on the telephone," he said.

"Yes. I make all the calls. Up now, please, or else leave."

They climbed the steep stairs. At the top, they stepped onto a landing, and the kid said, "Excuse me," and they stood aside to let him open a locked door with a big, old-fashioned key. "Come in. Be seated."

This floor looked a little more normal. Antique chairs and tables sat on intricately-woven area rugs laid down on a wooden floor, dark with age and use but at least clean. "Be seated, please," the boy repeated, gesturing to two armchairs. Ford and Stanley took them—Stanley smelled the faint odor of dust and wondered how long it had been since the cleaning lady had visited—and the boy took a simple straight chair facing them. "Now," he said. "Who are you, and what are you seeking?"

"We'd prefer to tell that to the master of the house," Ford said.

Without changing his facial expression, the boy said, "I am the master of the house. Who are you?"

"I'm Stanley Pines," Stan said, earning an annoyed glance from Ford, "and this is my brother Ford. What do we call you?"

"John," the boy said.

"Or—Juan?" Ford asked.

The teen shrugged. "If you wish. I was given that name at birth."

"Juan Solanas, then," Ford said, smiling. "You see, we know a little about you."

"Not as much as you think," the boy said, straight-faced. "I only use the name Solanas. I was born Juan Ponce de Léon in the village of Santervás de Campos." He paused, then added quietly, "That was in the year 1474."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: A Darkened Hallway**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

"You," Ford said slowly, staring at the young man who sat casually in the straight chair, "are 540 years old?"

"Yes. Or fifteen years old," Juan said. "Either . . . is correct." Despite his high-pitched, nearly feminine voice, he spoke with an impressive gravity.

"Then the Fountain of Youth malarkey ain't malarkey, after all," Stan said.

"Not just a false legend," Ford amended.

"I know the term 'malarkey,'" Juan said with a fleeting smile. "I have had radio to listen to for eighty years, and then television and now the internet. No, sirs, the Fountain is not malarkey."

"And if you're not lying to us," Stan said, "it obviously does what it's said to do—makes you young again."

Juan did not reply for some moments. He frowned in what looked like deep thought. "It isn't quite what you think it is. Yes, it gives back years. But gradually it robs you as well."

"How so?" Ford asked.

Juan took a deep breath. "Imagine . . . standing in a long, ill-lit hallway. You know that you have walked that entire way to get where you are. Looking back, you can see perhaps sixty feet of it with fair clarity. Beyond that, things become darker and darker. The other end, you cannot see at all."

"I don't get it," Stan said.

"I speak of memory," Juan explained. He spread his hands. "Your memory of all the earlier part of your long life fades out. You live in a sort of traveling set of years. You renew your youth at intervals. Me, I first drank from the Fountain in the year" . . . he looked thoughtful . . . "the year 1514, I believe. I have no memory of that at all. I know it only because I wrote the date down."

"Delgado says that you discovered the Fountain with him and three other men," Ford said. "You and he were the only survivors."

Juan nodded. "Yes, I wrote that down, too. If you drink too much of the water, it causes a madness. You thirst more, you drink more, and you become younger and younger. My three soldiers reached the site first. It had been a long march, they were thirsty, and they drank greedily. Within two weeks, they ceased to be."

"You wrote that down, too," Stan said.

"That is the only way I remember it at all. Each time I renew my youth, I must immediately read my journals. They go into many, many volumes now. The earliest are on crumbling paper. The latest—" he smiled—"exist as computer files saved on multiple USB drives, with cloud backups. You see, I keep up with the times."

"So, you went back to fifteen years old the first time?" Ford asked. "The same as you are now?"

Juan shook his head. "No, no. My soldiers behaved so strangely after drinking perhaps a quart of the water each that I thought it might be poisonous. I touched a fingertip to the water and placed perhaps two drops on my tongue. I thought it had not affected me at all, but the rejuvenation process takes time. A week, two weeks, and I felt some renewal of vigor. So did Delgado, who took a bit more than I. His gray beard began to be streaked with black, and that is how I knew for certain that we had found something extraordinary. But this age, fifteen, is not what I would wish."

"So why are you like fifteen physically now?" Stan asked.

"If one drinks about two ounces of the water," Juan said slowly, "one reverts in age thirty or thirty-five years, approximately. No more. That is my usual dose. But last time—earlier this year—when I physically had reached an age of approximately seventy, I drank my two ounces on one day, the first time I had tasted the water since 1984, you understand. I fell into the usual stupor—not a faint, but a confused state of mind—and then the next morning drank a little more, thinking that was my first, not my second, sampling. As a result—well, over a month I became younger than I wanted, and you see me as I am."

"Will the rejuvenation continue?" Ford asked.

"No, it is complete within two months at most. That is why I always wait to drink until I appear to be seventy. I hope I will never be so confused that I drink _three_ doses. That would be the end of me!"

 _He's fifteen,_ Stan thought as the youthful voice continued, _but he ain't even hit puberty yet!_ However, he knew that in historical times, boys and girls did not go through puberty as early as in 2014. "Must be a pain, being fifteen again," he said.

"It is annoying," Juan agreed. "Now I can do nothing legally. I am not of age. I hardly dare to venture out among people. A troublesome policeman might take me into custody as a runaway. Then what would happen to me? Oh, I can forge superb documents, but until my voice changes in a year or so, no one would believe me to be eighteen, much less twenty-one. I will have to prepare documents that show the old man who used to live here died and left a will giving all he owned to me, his grandson."

"Except that you're grandfather and grandson in one," Ford said. "I understand."

"You ever make that mistake before?" Stan asked.

Juan nodded. "Yes, just once, but I don't recall the specifics. It was in the middle of the nineteenth century, I believe. A civil war raged. I lost so much of my memory that time. I believe—I cannot know for certain—I believe I may have retreated into childhood, back to the age of twelve or so, to avoid being forced into an army to fight for a cause in which I did not believe. Delgado was here then, but in the guise of a Spaniard, he was not subject to being called to war. He was temporarily my guardian. My journals have a blank two years before they resume." He laughed without much amusement. "In those days, we used to hitch a mule to a wagon and drive for twenty miles to the nearest town to buy food. Delgado was the family servant, or so he told people. We claimed my father was in the army, and my mother depended on me. Today it is much easier to be fifteen in a way, for I can order everything, clothing or food, by computer. I have a convenient postal address to which everything is delivered."

Ford said, "You don't seem very curious about what we want."

"Oh, I know that already," Juan said, smiling. "You want youth. And you shall get it, gentlemen. I promise you, you shall receive what you search for."

"Four ounces worth!" Stan said.

Juan looked skeptical. "You wish only that?"

"Wait," Ford said before Stanley could answer. "What are you _not_ telling us?"

For many seconds, it seemed as though Juan would not answer. Then he said slowly, "It becomes an addiction. You will return again. And again. And perhaps you will tell others. I'm sorry. I cannot risk that."

"We're not the addictive types," Stan said, earning a surprised glance from Ford.

"Neither was Delgado," Juan said.

"What happened to him?" Ford asked.

Juan stood and walked to the narrow window. He stared out of it without looking back at the Pines twins. "Understand this: Renaldo Delgado was my good friend. I know that intellectually from reading my journals over and over. I have no clear memory of him. I would not know his face if I saw him."

"He's still alive, too?" Stan asked him.

"Perhaps. For many, many years we corresponded, and I do recall those times. You see, he went back to Spain. He took holy orders and became a priest. As for me, no one even suspected that I survived. I had . . . arranged to make it look as though I had died in Havana in the year—when was it? 1521, I believe. That was a ruse, for I became young and changed places with an older man who was dying from a wound, a poisoned arrow."

"History tells the story of your death in that manner," Ford said.

"As I intended. In reality, I returned here. Only Indios were here then—Calusa, though they merely passed through this territory and made their homes on the shorelines. Singlehanded, I built a kind of fortress to surround the Fountain. I lived here as a hermit. Renaldo would visit me often, and at intervals of twenty years and renew his youth. He stayed in the world and took other names. It was he who told me of the founding of Saint Augustine in . . . I think 1565. There he settled for many years."

"You stayed here as a hermit all that time?" Ford asked.

"Someone had to guard the secret. I had time to contemplate, to learn. Renaldo grew wise in the ways of commerce. He realized we needed wealth. The two of us gradually and quietly amassed a fortune." Juan shrugged. "Times change. The English took control for a while, and then Spain again. By 1821, when Florida joined the Union, Renaldo and I had secured a great land grant. We took care that the new American government recognized it. By that time, we had an income that made us untouchable. The first story of this house was built in the next ten years." His smile became bitter. "By slave labor, I fear."

"Didn't they discover your secret?" Ford asked.

"No. I had concealed the Fountain by then. None of them discovered it." The young man shook his head. "I tell this like a story, because it did not happen to me, not the me that now exists. It is far down that dark hallway, lost in gloom, forgotten. I read my own handwriting and realize that though I live on and on, Time still robs me of so much."

"So—when did Renaldo go back to Spain?" Stan asked.

"It was in the last century. I don't remember now. Sometime between the end of the Great European War and the American Depression."

"Between 1918 and 1929," Ford said. "Did the two of you quarrel?"

"No. Renaldo continued to live in the world. He had no desire to hide away, like me. But he could never have a real life. Do you understand me? He could never marry or have a family. Never live in one place for more than ten years or so. Otherwise, people noticed he never aged. In the end, he took a supply of the water and returned to Spain. He had taught me how to maintain my fortune. I own a corporation that trades in stocks and owns land all across the world. People work for me who do not know me. We pay taxes, and there still is an immense income that grows and grows, all thanks to my old friend whom I no longer can picture in my mind. The two of us wrote to each other—two, perhaps three letters exchanged each year. I do remember clearly when those letters ceased. It was in the year 1956. That year I was physically fifty years old. Renaldo had renewed his youth and was physically twenty. Then he wrote me a letter of farewell. He had drunk the last of his water, and he said he would drink no more from the Fountain. He had become very pious, and he hoped to become a priest and eventually to face God and find forgiveness. I do not know if he still lives."

"In other words," Stan said, "someone who drinks the water doesn't necessarily get addicted, after all."

"It takes an unusual man," Juan said. "I had a reputation as a bold explorer. I now tell you, before God, that was only a pose. I am a terrible coward. I know that one day the Fountain will run dry. As all men do, one day I shall die. But I will delay that as long as I can. And I will protect my secrets. Do you wish to see my greatest secret? Do you wish to see the Fountain of Youth?"

Ford and Stan glanced at each other. "We do," Ford said firmly.

"And then," Stan said, "we need to tell you why we want just four ounces of the water."

"Come with me." He led them through another door and another, to the opposite side of the great building—Stan estimated it was at least a third of a mile around the periphery. There another stairway, this one spiral, led downward. Juan paused at the top to take a lantern from the wall and light it. "There is no electricity below," he said. "Take care. The stairs are steep."

 _Geeze Louise,_ Stan thought as they descended. _We gotta be in the sub-basement by now!_

The stair ended in a vaulted, stone-walled room, really a corridor stretching for about fifty feet. A barred iron gate, like a prison door, stood in their way, but Juan unlocked it. They went on for another twenty steps and came to a second, solid-iron door with a rectangular window in it, the opening not more than one foot wide and six inches tall. Juan unlocked that door, too. "We are in the center of the structure now," he said. He pushed the heavy door open on groaning hinges.

They stepped into a tall, cylindrical room—or so it looked. Far overhead was a skylight, and above that blue sky. The walls were natural stone, layered in strata, and the cylindrical shaft stretched up for thirty feet—the skylight might have been another thirty feet above that. In the center, the floor lay sandy, and in the exact center rippled an expanse of dark water, no more than eight feet in diameter.

"Above us," Juan said, "is the hollow courtyard of the house. When first we discovered this, we had to lower a pail on a rope from the surface up there. I myself dug out the passage we have taken. It took me fifty years, and with the help of hired workers I put these two metal doors in place. Go, look. It does not appear as impressive as it truly is." He handed the lantern to Stanley.

The air felt cool and smelled a little like rust. The twins went forward until they stood on the edge of the pool. Stan, holding the light high, looked down at the rippling surface, gleaming with yellow reflections, and said, "Looks deep."

"These subterranean springs can go down for thousands of feet," Ford replied. "The water is extraordinarily clear. I can see the sides down to about ten feet."

"Yeah, and then it gets dark," Stan said. "Like the end of a—what was it—'ill-lit hallway.'"

Suddenly, from behind them, came the echoing clang of the metal door closing.

It had the sound of finality.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Inquisition**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

"Hey!" Stan yelled through the narrow, barred grille. "What's the idea?"

The only answer came as a clang of the barred outer gate. And then the growling of dogs, several of them. Stan peered through the grate. "He's goin' away," he said. "Left the dogs on the other side of that barred door. I can just see 'em—now I can't. The jerk's gone off with the lantern."

"Why did he do that?" Ford asked.

Stan turned and leaned against the iron door, his arms crossed. "I'd say it's obvious. He knows that sooner or later we'll get so thirsty we'll drink outa that spring. Then when we're too little to fight him, he might let us go. Or he might leave us here. That's fightin' dirty!"

"But we were no threat!"

" _We_ know that, Ford, but _he_ don't. OK, you sit down against the wall here, beside the door. Use that big brain of yours to think of some escape plan. Me, I'm gonna make the round of the—what was it? C-note?"

"Cenote," Ford corrected automatically. Then he pronounced it very slowly and clearly: "Cee-NOTE-ee."

"OK, OK, whatever. I'm gonna see if we might be able to climb up there to the courtyard."

"It's thirty feet, at least," Ford said, staring up at the circle of light.

"Yeah, well, we got incentive. Come up with a plan! Wish we had Mabel and her grappling hook here!" The sandy distance between the solid rock wall of the great cylinder and the pool was about ten feet. Walking slowly, with his right hand on the stone wall, Stan covered the distance, the whole way around, the sand crunching underfoot, the stone rough and cool against his palm. He constantly stared upward, sometimes pausing to crane his neck and squint. When he got back to Ford, he sat down beside him on the sand, his back against rock. "Don't look good."

"Too steep?"

"Not only that. This thing kinda flares out toward the bottom here. Kinda like bein' at the bottom of a giant wine bottle. The hole up there's probably the same diameter as the pool. So, there's an overhang everywhere. Only way we could climb up would be if we were a couple of flies. The rock ain't smooth—it's limestone, I think, rough-textured, and it looks like a long time ago the water went all the way up to the surface. There's sort of formations, what do you call 'em, stalactites, hanging' on here and there, like after the pool sank down water still seeped out and left minerals behind."

"I'm surprised you know that."

"Meh, I watch educational TV when there's nothing good on."

Ford sighed. "Did I hear dogs?"

"Yeah, Dobermans. I counted five of 'em, and maybe there's six. He locked 'em in the passageway, I think just past that jail door. Dunno why. It's not like we could beat the solid iron door down."

A clink caught their attention, and both men got up—not fast, because old knees don't work that way, but they both got to their feet. "Juan!" Ford called. "Is that you?"

"Look," Stan said, pointing toward the bottom of the iron door. A flap no larger than the grille window had opened, and a hand shoved in what looked like an aluminum pie plate piled with—perhaps—food. Then another.

"I won't let you starve to death," the clear, young voice said. "Sooner or later you will be compelled to drink. I will try to stop you when you are no older than two or three. At that age, you forget everything. There are orphanages that will take care of babies and raise them and find them homes. You will grow up never remembering any of this. Unless you are unwise and drink too much."

"What did we ever do to _you_?" Stan bellowed.

"You found me. I will return for the plates in a few hours."

The dogs whined, and they heard the clink and then the clank of the barred door opening and closing. Stan picked up one of the aluminum plates and sniffed. "Beans an' corn, I think," he said. "He ain't much of a cook."

"I don't know," Ford said. "That combination gives one all nine essential amino acids—protein, in other words—and it's rich in folate, minerals, and vitamins. Not to mention fiber."

"Huh, fiber. When we gotta go, where do we go?" Stan asked. "I got an idea—that pool's right there!"

"I don't think we ought to offend Juan," Ford said. "Maybe the opposite side of the cenote, away from the water."

"Wonder if he's done this before?"

"Me, too," Ford said. "I wonder if his laborers wound up imprisoned here." He reached for one of the plates. "There's a spoon here, and a chunk of dark bread." He began to eat.

"You seriously eatin' that junk?" Stan asked. "It might be poisoned!"

"I'm hungry," Ford said in a reasonable. "And what would be the point of poisoning us? I believe him. He doesn't plan to kill us. Just—neutralize us. Have some, it's not bad."

"Eh, maybe later." Stan started to prowl around, slowly. "Maybe I missed somethin'. I'm gonna check again."

His slow circuit took him maybe half an hour. At one point, he experimented with rock-climbing at a place where the strata shelved out, but with the inward lean of the wall, he could make no more than four feet of progress before dropping back down to the sand. "We ain't getting' out that way," he muttered.

He continued his round, and when he got back to Ford, he found him lying on his side on the sand, knees drawn up and asleep, his three-quarters eaten meal beside him. "For the love of—Wake up!"

Ford didn't respond to that, or to shaking, though his breathing and pulse were regular. Stan knelt beside him. "Huh. I wonder—"

He picked up Ford's plate and sniffed what remained. It smelled like beans and corn. But—he sniffed again. A bitter hint of something medicinal tickled his nostrils and his memory. "Son of a—the little jerk slipped us a Mickey!"

Ford had been sedated. "Why?" Stan asked himself.

Well—sure. Juan wanted to come in and search them while they were unconscious! That had to be it. Therefore, he might come back soon. If Stan could improvise a weapon—

He felt around. No stones, no driftwood, nothing but sand. Well, sand in a sock—

"Wait," he told himself. "He might expect that. Maybe there's another way."

He felt the edges of the door. It wasn't set directly in the stone wall—a six-inch broad doorjamb of very heavy wood lined the stone opening, and the metal door was hinged to that.

The hinge pins, unfortunately, were on the far side. Unreachable.

But—hmm. He felt a projection on the right side of the doorway. A nail, sticking out about three inches. Why?

The lantern, of course. A place to hang the light if Juan came down here in the night. He couldn't see the nail very clearly—it and the wood were both dark—but he grasped it and began to try to wiggle it. It was a big one, maybe the kind they called forty-penny nails, five inches long, practically a spike.

His fingers started to bleed. Grunting, he tore a strip from the hem of his shirt and wrapped his thumb and forefinger. Patiently, he pushed up, he pulled down. The nail was giving a little. He tugged. If only he had a hammer—

Well, he could improvise. He took off his belt and hooked the buckle over the head of the nail. He wrapped the belt around his fist, set himself, and jerked.

The nail flew out and hit him in the chest. He dropped to his knees, scrabbled in the sand, and found it. "Gotcha!"

He put his belt back on and in the dim light looked at the lock. As he had suspected, it was ancient—probably dated from before the Civil War. It had the old-fashioned keyhole, a circle on top of a truncated triangle. "Mortise lock," Stan mumbled. "OK, let's see what we can do."

First, he found a spot where the crack between the door and the jamb let him insert about a quarter inch of the nail. Then, with a great deal of straining effort, he levered the key until, slowly, the bit of nail trapped in the gap bent to almost a ninety-degree angle. It wasn't perfect, but Stan knew this kind of lock.

Patiently, he inserted the bent nail into the keyhole, tilted it, and probed. He found the lever and jiggled the nail left and right. The danged thing might be so rusty that it couldn't be picked like this, but if so—well, then on to plan B. Whatever that was. He had no idea.

He felt a click. Taking a deep breath, Stan turned the handle. It moved. He shoved. The door creaked. He heard growls and smelled a doggy odor.

But the Dobermans were on the far side of the second door, the barred jailhouse one. Stan opened the solid door as far as it would go to let a little light—hardly more than gloom—into the section of the tunnel between the doors. Through the steel bars, he could see the milling dogs.

"OK," he said. He should be able to pick the second lock—but then the dogs would tear into him.

But maybe not. He went back into the cenote. Before anything else, he dragged Ford into the tunnel—if Stan could get out, he didn't want to leave a puzzled Ford to possibly drink that water. Then he returned and retrieved both tin plates. He closed and with some trouble re-locked the iron door. Now it was very dark.

The dogs barred the path, just pat the jailhouse door. "Hi, guys," Stan said. "You hungry?"

He got a dollop of beans and corn in one of the spoons and held it out. He felt one of the dogs try to bite it, then heard the animal sniff it and gobble it down. Stan used the spoon as a catapult and lobbed dollops of the drugged food to the dogs. They chased them, quarreled over them, and devoured them. And they started to act woozy. Finally, Stan could tilt the nearly-empty plate and slip it through the bars. He kept putting food in it. One by one he heard the dogs stagger and lie down, or simply collapse.

"Sorry, guys," Stan said. "Had to do it."

The second lock was nearly identical to the first—in fact, they probably opened with the same key, or in this case, the same nail. It was easier in the dark, where he relied only on touch, and he released that lock, too. Then Stan closed and locked it again to keep Ford safe from the dogs. He shuffled through the pack to avoid stepping on them or hurting them. Before he reached the spiral stair, Stan noticed very dim light leaking in from a low door—a doggy door for big dogs. "Might as well," he muttered, dropping to his hands and knees.

It was a square tunnel, big enough for Dobermans and so barely big enough for a crawling man One very small light bulb burned forty feet in, but he passed that and soon crept through the pitch blackness of a moonless midnight.

Stan crawled a lot farther he would have preferred, on stinging hands and aching knees, up a rising ramp that occasionally made sharp turns that he didn't always anticipate in the dark. More than once he clonked his head against stone. Finally, though, he saw light ahead, and he emerged into a cage—a kennel—big enough for him to stand up in. He seemed to be on ground level. Daylight came in from outside, and an electric light fixture—not turned on—hung on the ceiling above the heavy wire roof of the kennel.

He closed the door behind him and secured it with a sliding bolt. Most of the cage was inside the walls of the house—but a door projected a few inches into the yard, surrounded by thorny, concealing brush.

"Missed seein' this before," Stan said. "Talkin' to myself. Sign of gettin' senile. Senile? Who's senile? You, ya senile old goat!"

The outer door of the kennel was man-sized and had no lock. A dog couldn't have opened it, but a human could. God bless thumbs!

Around the walls to the archway, where the Vespa and the beat-up old Macaw were parked. "Hope the front-door lock is the same as the others," Stan said.

It wasn't. It was a modern deadbolt style, very heavy. And it was locked. Stan stepped back outside the arch and looked up, wondering if he could reach the second-floor windows—which were too narrow to do him much good. Or the roof—there was a skylight over the central courtyard he might be able to break—

In front of him the door opened. Too late, Stan thought, _Shoulda found a weapon!_

But Juan had one—an automatic, a Colt .45. "You are an exceptionally clever man," he said, gesturing with it. "Come in."

Stan put his hands up. "I get antsy when a kid aims a gun at my guts," he said.

"I know how to use it. Let's go upstairs."

They went not to the first room, but to a fairly modern bathroom first, windowless. "Your hands are blistered," Juan said. "There are bandages and antibiotic ointment in the medicine cabinet there."

"That's unexpectedly kind of you."

"I am not a savage."

The scrapes and blisters were on his palms. Stan applied some of the ointment and found four-inch adhesive bandages. They felt odd, but they'd do. "Come with me," Juan said, keeping the gun aimed at him. He led him to another inner room, which looked like a command center. A bank of three computers gleamed there, and above them were monitors. Three rolling office chairs sat at the computer stations. "Your movements were detected when you left the pool enclosure," Juan said, gesturing to the monitors.

"So how come you let me do all that crawlin'? Why didn't you head me off?"

"I was curious to see if you could get past the dogs."

"Yeah, poor mutts. I hope the dope you put in the food didn't hurt 'em."

"It will just make them sleep. So, you left the Fountain of Youth of your own free will, did you? You have some objection to regaining your youth."

"Yeah. We don't want it that extreme. And believe me, Johnny, we just want a one-time dose, like we told you."

"But I can't trust you." He gestured with the pistol to one of the chairs, and Stan sat in it. Juan took a second one, too far away for Stan to try a kick at his gun hand. "What do you propose?"

Stan thought for a minute. "Can I stand up and reach in my pocket?"

"Do you have a knife? Some other weapon?"

"No. Just a coin is all."

"A . . . coin?"

"Can I show you?"

"Move very slowly."

Stan stood up, reached into his pocket with some difficulty because of the bandage on his palm, and pulled out a large—and old—coin. "Know what this is?"

"A silver dollar."

"Yeah, a 1900 Morgan. A cartwheel, they call it. My lucky piece."

Juan did not look impressed. "I don't understand."

Stan shrugged. "My grampa gave me an' Ford silver dollars when we were little. I kept mine with me all these years. You look like a gambling man to me."

Juan laughed. "I'm afraid that one silver dollar, even a rare one, wouldn't be worth my time."

"Nah, I wouldn't gamble it away. You ever hear of the game 'Truth or Dare?' No? Kids play it. You choose one or the other, an' whichever, you gotta take the dare or tell the truth. Now, I got a different game in mind—Question and Truth. One of us flips the coin, the other calls it. Winner gets to ask the other one a question. Loser has to give a straight answer."

"That won't prevent your lying."

"Look at my eyes," Stan said. "You been around a long time, you should know people. I swear on my brother's life that I'll tell the truth, no matter what you ask. You just have to swear the same thing."

"And why should you believe me?"

"'Cause you got the gun," Stan said.

Juan chuckled at that. "You are one strange fellow. Flip the coin, Señor Maníaco."

"Name's Pines, but I got a grand-niece who'd say, 'I'll take that as a compliment!'" Stan flipped the coin and while it spun in the air yelled, "Call it, Johnny!"

He called 'heads' and was right. Stan settled back in the chair. "Ask away."

"Why," Juan said solemnly, "is it so important to you and your brother to have just four ounces of this precious, magical water?"

Stan looked him in the eye. "Because I did something terrible to my brother more than thirty years ago and I owe him bad. This is gonna sound crazy."

"No more crazy than a five-hundred-year-old boy of fifteen holding you at gunpoint."

"Ya got a point there. Okay, so first my brother is a kind of mad scientist . . .."

The whole story came out. After some time, Stan finished, "In the end, we beat this Bill Cipher character—I'm still kinda foggy on the details, 'cause I blew my mind to get rid of him, and parts of what happened are still lost to me—down that dark hallway, ya know. But I'd caused Ford to spend near thirty full years in these bizarre dimensions, getting' the snot beat out of him, always trying to get home. You look under that shirt of his and see his scars, you'd see how much I owe him, how bad I need to make it up to my brother. I want him to get his thirty years back."

"And why four ounces of the water? Why not two?"

"Ah-ah," Stan said, grinning. "We flip again. You wanna do the honors?"

Juan flipped the coin. Stan guessed 'heads,' and that was right again."

"Is this a trick coin?" Juan asked.

"My turn to question, but flip it a few times and see."

Juan tried. Tails. Heads. Tails. Tails. Heads. "All right," he said. "I had to check." He held up the pistol. "If I put this down, will you do something silly?"

"I don't like guns," Stan told him. "No matter which end of 'em I'm on. Nah, we're good. We're talkin' man to man. I'm not gonna attack you. OK, my question: What will it take for you to let us go—with just a little of the water, like we asked?"

Juan carefully laid the gun on a desk to his right, out of Stan's reach but not out of his. "That is a difficult question. What could you possibly offer me?"

"How much would you be willing to pay to guarantee your privacy? To make sure nobody else would come callin'?"

"Quite a lot," Juan said. "I pay you?"

"No. See, I think Ford could arrange for you to purchase that book of maps and that old manuscript by your buddy Delgado that led us to you. If he could, and if you get them and keep them here, nobody else can track you down that way. But it'll cost. I'm thinkin' you'll have to donate a generous sum to a church in Spain."

"I might be willing to do that," Juan said.

"I have a suspicion," Stan said, "that your old friend Delgado is still alive. Only now I think he might be an old priest who calls himself Mendez."

"That is . . . interesting," Juan said. "What makes you suspect that?"

"'Cause in five hundred years nobody's come across these papers. Ford spends a few days in the—what is it? Bibleoteca?"

Juan chuckled. "Your accent is horrible, but that is the right word."

"Ford goes there, meets the old guy, and somehow he steers him to the atlas and then to the journal of Delgado. And somehow just enough pages are missing from the journals so my brother can't quite come straight here—but it really didn't take much searching. That sounds like planning to me."

"You are unwitting emissaries from my old friend," Juan said.

"I don't know what that means, but I think in a way he sent us to you. He may have changed his mind. He may want to come here and retire."

"Then he should have come himself."

"What if he was afraid you wouldn't know him, or vice-versa? That long, dark hallway."

Juan drummed his fingers on the desk. "It is just possible you are right. I make this offer: If your brother will put me in touch with Delgado, or if he can find a way to get the documents for me, at whatever price, I will pay it and I will set you both free. No water."

"No deal," Stan said.

"I don't want you to return in the future."

"We won't return."

"I can't trust you."

Stan stared him down. "Yeah, but my brother trusted you enough to eat your drugged food!"

Juan seemed to be struggling with his thoughts. Slowly, he said, "I don't know."

"Tell you what," Stan said. "You're Spanish. You're a wagering man. You have such a thing as a deck of cards around? We can play another little game. I call it Cutthroat Durak."

"Yes, there are cards, but this game—I have never heard of it."

"It's not so hard to pick up. And we have all the time you'll need. Just one thing—you gotta let my brother out of that tunnel. Lock him in a room somewhere, lock me in another if you want. Then you and me will play a game or two."

"I would have to bring him up into the living quarters anyway," Juan said, "if he is to hear and agree to your terms—to see if he can arrange for me to get those maps and papers."

"Then do it," Stan said.

"He should be waking within the next hour or so. I'll have to lock you in a room before I go down to bring him up." Juan smiled. "One with security monitors and modern locks." He reached to a printer and pulled out one sheet of paper. He passed it to Stan. "Write him a note. Tell him what we have discussed. Here is a pen."

Stan's fingers were stiff, but he wrote:

Ford—I talked to Juan, and it's OK. He'll probably hold you at gunpoint to bring you upstairs, but him and me are working on a way so he can let us go, and I'm trying for the four ounces of water. You'll need to get him in touch with that Father Mendez. It'll be OK if things are the way I think they are. Anyways, don't make trouble and I think we'll get home yet. With or without the water, I've promised Juan we won't bother him again. Hope you will agree. You're welcome-Stanley

Stan pushed the note back to Juan. "Here ya go. Now you can lock me up. But somethin' else, first." Stan squirmed. "I'm an old guy, ya know. Before you lock me in, take me back to that bathroom—I gotta visit the Juan."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Reunion**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

The lock clicked, and Stanford—who had been lying on the bed—jumped up and grabbed the nearest potential weapon. It was only a lamp, but still.

"Whatcha lookin' for, Brainiac?" came Stan's cheerful voice. "Shedding a little light on the subject?" Stan stood grinning in the doorway, his hand on the knob.

"What's happening, Stanley?" Ford demanded. "I've been left in this room for hours!"

"Yeah, yeah," Stan said. "OK, Johnnie's kinda backed away from the idea of offin' us or turnin' us into babies. But we gotta do certain quid pro quos for him, follow? Put that lamp down, Ford."

Stanford set the lamp—not a good weapon, a porcelain relic from the 1920s, probably—down on the bedside table. "Johnnie? You mean Juan?"

Stan stretched and sat on the foot of the bed, yawning. "Yeah, that guy. It's weird, playin' cards with a fifteen-year-old who's really five hundred! He's got a lot more gamblin' savvy than you'd think."

Stanley sat beside him and began to put on his shoes. "What—what were you playing for?"

Stan scratched his nose. "All in good time, Ford. Now—this is important—can you get in touch with your friend the priest in Valladolid? That Mendez guy?"

Stanford blinked at him. "I . . . don't know. What time is it? What _day_ is it? My phone battery ran out of charge, and there's no clock. What's happening? What have you done? I know I've eaten three or four meals and slept a few hours since he marched me up here—"

Stanley held up both hands. "Sheesh, slow down! You learn by askin' questions, but only if you listen for the answers! Lessee, it's Saturday, I think. 'Bout six in the morning. Juan and me, we been playin' cards all night and yakkin'. You know how them old guys are, talk your ears off. Anywho, can you call up Father Mendez?"

"Six a.m., six a.m. That would be . . . noon in Valladolid. I can try. He would probably be at the Bibleoteca, perhaps on his lunch hour. But my phone—"

Stanley rose and beckoned with his finger. "Come with me."

They went back to the computer room, where Juan Ponce de Leon sat in one of the chairs. His eyes were tired and a little baggy—reminding Stan of Dipper in an odd way, though this kid was skinny and lean—but he smiled. "I hope my bedroom was comfortable, Dr. Pines," he said.

"Your—I'm sorry, I didn't know I'd put you out," Ford said. "Where—where did you sleep?"

"I didn't." Juan grinned. He jerked a thumb in Stanley's direction. "Your brother and I have been in a battle of cards and wits for more than thirty hours."

Stan snorted. "Yeah, and in the wits battle, I was only half armed!" Juan even chuckled at that.

"I'm very confused," Stanford said.

"Yeah, well, that's normal for you guys who think too much," Stan said. "Look, let me lay it out for you." He sat in one of the three chairs, gestured Stanford into the third one, and started to explain.

Ten minutes later, from a phone in the computer room, Stanford placed the overseas call. He reached the library, was transferred twice, and finally heard the old priest's voice: "Dr. Pines. A pleasure to hear from you again. I hope your researches have gone well."

"That remains to be seen," Stanford told him. "They have led me to Juan Ponce de Leon."

"I don't understand. He died in Havana in July 1521. His body is buried in Puerto Rico, in the _Catedral Metropolitana Basílica de San Juan Bautista_."

Juan, listening in on an extension, scribbled a note and handed it to Stanford, who read it. "Are you sure that wasn't the soldier Hernan Molina who died and was buried in his place?"

The priest paused for a long time. Then, very softly, he asked, "Have you spoken to him?"

"Would you like to?"

"I—am not sure. Yes, I think I would."

"Delgado," Juan said, "here I am."

Another long pause, then in an emotional voice, Fr. Mendez said, "It has been a long time, brother."

"It has been a while."

"What happened to your voice?"

"I . . . drank a little too much. It comes of living a solitary life, I think." Juan cleared his throat. "I will ask Dr. Pines to give you my request. If you refuse, you may tell him. I am very tired and I don't know how I would bear disappointment."

Stanford relayed the request: the atlas. The Delgado manuscript. In exchange, a donation to any church that Fr. Mendez might wish. "The manuscript," the priest said slowly, "is not a problem. It was never donated to the library. It is, and remains, mine. I have not written in it for, well, many, many decades, and I gave it a false ending after I returned home the last time from the United States. I probably should have destroyed it, but . . . without it, it is difficult to remember those days."

"It is deliberately misleading," Ford said.

"Yes, to my shame. I wrote fiction. No, let's be honest with each other: I wrote lies. The truth was too fantastic."

"You left enough truth in it to put me on the right path," Ford said. "Did you want me to find . . . your old friend?"

"It was in the back of my mind. I considered returning myself, but—I am very old now. The water would be a terrible temptation."

Stanford gazed at Juan. The fifteen-year-old sat back in his chair, his elbows on the chair arms, his forearms raised, his hands clasped almost in the attitude of prayer. He rested his mouth on his closed hands, and tears tracked his face. "I think," Stanford said quietly, "your friend needs you."

Moments passed, and then a sigh came over the phone from Spain. "The truth is, I am only a volunteer at the library here. I retired five years ago, I have no ties, and I can walk away any time I wish. Today, even. May I speak to Juan again?"

Stanford held out the phone, but Juan shook his head and pressed a button. "I have you on speaker," he said, his voice husky.

"Do you wish me to return?"

"Of all things, I do," Juan said. "My thoughts run in evil currents from isolation and loneliness. My soul is sick."

"You will not insist that I use the Fountain?"

"I never have. I never will."

Another sigh. Then the priest said, "There is a school here in Valladolid. Such a donation as you could make would allow it to reach many, many more poor children who have no hope of education. There is a hospital that serves ill children. It, too, could use money."

"They will have it," Juan said. "Tell me who and where, and I will set up transfers today."

"Then I will deliver the Delgado manuscript and the atlas to you personally."

"When can you leave?"

The old priest chuckled. "Now. This instant."

"You will have a first-class airline ticket waiting in the airport in Madrid."

"No, my brother," the voice said softly. "The cheapest, please. The difference in money—give it to a charity."

"You shame me."

"I don't mean to. Only to advise you. I spoke too facetiously. Give me until next Wednesday to put my few affairs in order. I will depart for the United States on that day."

"It shall be as you wish. Until I see you again, Renaldo."

"God be with you until then, Juan."

"With both of us."

Stanford hung up. "Incredible," he said. "I never guessed that Father Mendez was not what he seemed. I thought finding the documents was sheer luck."

"So, Johnny," Stanley said cheerfully, "we can go now, right?"

Juan looked at him. "You have been good company. I'm almost sorry you lost the card game, Mr. Pines."

"Nah, call me Stan," Stanley said. He shrugged. "Meh, you win some, you lose some. My luck was bound to run out sooner or later. Shoulda known better than to get into a game with an old guy! They're pretty smart, I hear." He winked. "So how's about it? We still your prisoners?"

"No, you are not. I will not stop you from leaving," Juan said. "However, there is a favor you might do for me—if you are so inclined."

"Name it."

"My friend," Juan said, "will need a ride here when he arrives."

* * *

 **From the Journals of Sanford Pines:** _Friday, October 22—It is disheartening that, having come so close, we will go back home without what we sought. We are in Jacksonville, Florida, waiting at the airport to meet Father Mendez's flight from Atlanta. I wonder why every flight now seems to go through Atlanta!_

 _We gratified Juan, I think, by buying groceries and a stock of dog food for him and transporting them to his home. He went with us on the shopping expedition, and he paid for everything with cash, since he does not dare use his credit cards while looking so young._

 _Nobody paid him any attention, and he slouched along like a typical surly teenager. One check-out clerk in the pet store, a young girl, "hit on him" as Stanley says. I think that means she flirted with him. She certainly smiled at him and I think on the sales receipt she even wrote her telephone number!_

 _In the car, Juan said such moments made him sad. "I will soon have all the urges of an adolescent," he said, and I noticed that indeed his voice broke a little, as if it is starting to change. "But what's the use? I can't form any lasting relationships."_

" _The temporary kind can be nice, though," Stan said, very unhelpfully, I thought._

 _Juan insisted that we stay as guests, though in that huge fortress of a house he has only two bedrooms, his and the one that has not been occupied since Delgado departed for Spain some time prior to 1929. Note: Most of the rooms are empty! Juan says the house was designed to conceal the Fountain, and it needed space for that function. Though it's the size of a hotel, the building really has only about ten rooms that are used at all._

 _Anyway, in the end Stan and I made do sleeping on sofas. On Monday, we also bought new bedding and sheets and such for Delgado's long-neglected and dusty room—I didn't think we could handle a mattress, but Stan purchased a kind of air-mattress thing, incredible what they do these days, and we got it up the stairs and over the next day did a thorough cleaning and dusting of the room._

 _I think Delgado was spiritually inclined even long ago. Though just as large as Juan's bedroom, his had the Spartan look of a monk's cell. I don't know if he'll spend his last years here—or if he will give in to the temptation of the Fountain—but I hope the old friends will be good company for each other._

 _I did have an opportunity to speak with Juan about our original goal. He asked me why it was so important for us to taste of the water, since it has not brought him any true happiness in all his long life. I said—_

* * *

"I caused my brother to change his whole life," Ford told Juan quietly. "Due to my obsession and my stubbornness, following our accident Stanley had to dedicate thirty years of his life to doing the impossible—educating himself in arcane physics, learning enough engineering to repair my Portal. All because he dedicated himself to bringing me back from the other dimensions. He gave up thirty years of living to accomplish that, and I owe my brother. I'd like to give him back his thirty years."

"But I could not measure the water so accurately. It could be twenty-five, it could be forty, and anyway, thirty years might not in the end prove enough to satisfy him," Juan said. "Then he would return again and again. In the end, he might become a hermit and a keeper of the Fountain. He might become what I am—a prisoner of time."

"I don't think so," Ford told him. "However—the decision is yours."

Juan nodded but said nothing.

* * *

"How was your flight?" Stanford asked Father Mendez as they got into the car.

Father Mendez—he wore his cassock, even in the muggy heat of a Florida October—said, "Good, as these things go. I will be happy to rest my bones."

"Yeah," Stanley said, "airplanes are tough on the knees!"

"Fortunately," the priest said with a smile, "my knees have had a lot of exercise in bending."

They arrived at the gate just as the sun was setting. Juan stood there, as if he had been waiting all afternoon for them. He opened it, and the priest embraced him, then pushed him back at arm's length to look at him. "You drank a lot this time!" he said. "What happened?"

"I forgot," Juan said with a sheepish smile. "I drank twice! Otherwise I would be at least as old as you."

He locked the gate, and they all got into the car and rode to the house. "It never changes," the priest said, looking at the building as they got out again.

"Inside," Juan told him, "it does. I have all electric lights now, in every room. I have a computer center! But I have left your old room as it was. Only changed the bedding for you, and dusted."

The priest carried a briefcase, which he patted. "Thank you for your donations. They will mean much to the children. I have brought the documents. We'll burn them tonight if you wish."

"No," Juan said. "I have a library. We'll simply store them there."

Stanley and Stanford felt a little left out as the two old friends began to talk. They gently refused Juan's offer of dinner and drove back to the gate. Ford climbed out, unlocked it, Stan drove through, and then Ford locked the gate and got back in the car.

"I guess we go home now," Stanley said.

Ford sighed. "Yes. We'll drive down to Ellismere and close out the house rental. Then we might as well go on and fly to Portland out of Miami."

"Yeah, by way of Atlanta. They got casinos in Miami?"

"I'm sure you can find something," Stanford said with a tired smile.

"Ya know, I been thinkin'. You found on those maps a bunch of shipwrecks. Spanish galleons, in water too deep for recovery—back then. Now, though, there's SCUBA and all. Ya still got photos of those maps with the longitude and latitude and so on?"

"Why, yes."

"Then maybe we might stick around a little while. Whattaya say?"

"I don't know, Stanley," his brother said, slumping a little. "I'm tired."

Stan, at the wheel, shrugged. "Meh. Maybe I can persuade you. Tell you what—we won't fly back until next week, OK? Tonight, we'll just unwind, and we'll talk about what we want to do over drinks. Deal?"

"Deal," Stanford said. The brothers both smiled, their expressions strangely identical.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: It Ain't Over . . .**

 **(September-October 2014)**

* * *

The two old men sat at a table in one of Miami's trendiest restaurants. The low murmur of conversation, the occasional burst of light laughter, and the sound of a piano—the woman pianist, a pretty young thing in a sparkling evening dress that caught the gleam of the spotlight, was currently playing "Unchained Melody." The lighting was low, which seemed to suit most of the other customers, young couples at tables for two.

Stanford looked just a bit uneasy. "I don't often drink wine."

"Yeah, yeah, but this is a celebration!" Stan told him. "Look, we escaped a fate worse than debt, there's at least a possibility of sunken gold to be recovered, we got our health, so make an exception. Besides, I remember when I first moved into the Shack, I found your stash of Cabernet. It was good stuff. What did it cost ya back in the eighties, like twelve dollars a bottle?"

"Well—it was rather expensive for that time," Ford admitted. "Wait, you drank _all_ my wine?"

"The whole four bottles," Stan said dryly. He held up his wine glass, gleaming with a rich purple-red and sniffed it with his nose, a rich orangey color. "Now, _this_ stuff is French and runs two hundred bucks a bottle! So, don't you dare to begrudge me four lousy bottles of California wine. Come on, let's drink this, have dinner, and make some plans."

They sat near the floor-to-ceiling windows of Gustave's 1831, a restaurant on the top floor of a fancy hotel. It was night outside, but the skyline of Miami Beach glimmered and gleamed in a thousand colors, reflected in the waters of Biscayne Bay. It looked like a fairyland.

Ford didn't seem impressed with the view as he toyed with his glass of wine. Then, impulsively, he said, "Stanley—I have to ask. Are you sick?"

"Who, me?" Stanley asked, surprise in his voice. "Why do you even ask?"

Looking unhappy, Ford said, "I've been worried about you. Ever since you gave me that envelope and told me about your will, I've been wondering. You can tell me, Stanley."

Stan laughed. "Hah! Worryin' about me, huh? Look, you don't have to be concerned. I was thinking about all that flyin' we were doing, plus I had no idea whether we'd find the dumb fountain or not, or if it might be on a Caribbean island and guarded by armed thugs and sharks with frickin' lasers strapped to their heads—nah, relax, I'm not sick with anything except old man's complaints. Creaky knees, stuff like that."

"Honestly?"

"Yeah. Why, somethin' the matter with you?"

"Me? No, my physical showed that I'm in good shape," Ford said.

"Yeah, mine said I was in fair condition. Gotta start exercising' one of these days!"

"I'll remind you of that. Wait, wait—sharks with lasers? That makes no sense!"

"OK, Sixer, it was a weak joke, just forget it! Look, it's nine-thirty, we had nothing all day but some bad-quality fast-food burgers at noon and then a couple bottles of overpriced water, I'm starving, and we haven't even ordered our food yet. So—" he raised his glass. "Here's to us."

"To us," Ford said, and they clinked glasses. They sipped their wine.

"What do you think of it?" Stan asked, savoring the bouquet again.

"It's very good," Ford said. "A little weak, though, don't you think?"

" _Weak_? Better not be, two hundred smackers a bottle!" They both sampled the wine again. "Mine tastes OK. I'm no connoisseur, but you know, can't complain."

They finished the first glass, ordered dinner, and Stan poured them a second round. He tilted his head. "Why are you grinning at me like that?"

"Because I know you had an angle," Ford said. "You got some of the water from the Fountain, didn't you?"

"I didn't steal anything!" Stan said.

Ford sipped his wine and said, "I didn't accuse you of stealing. Stanley, so just come clean!"

Grinning, Stan shrugged. "OK. I found something wrapped up in a little paper bag in the back seat of the Macaw when we were packin' to drive down from Ellismere to Miami. It was in the floor, on the side where Juan rode back to the house—right behind the passenger seat." Stan reached in his pocket and pulled out a very small glass bottle. "This was full of water—then."

"That's not four ounces," Ford said.

"Nope. Maybe three, three and a half, at the most."

"And you put some of it in my wine."

"Well, the whole reason that I went on this cockamamie trip was to give you back your thirty years, Ford!"

"I suspected something like that," Ford said. He sipped his second glass of wine. Then, confidently, he added, "That's why I switched glasses while you were glancing at the menu."

"What!"

"I came on this trip for _you,_ Stanley! I feel guilty that you devoted thirty years to retrieving me—and at first, I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn't even thank you. Giving you back your lost years is the least I could do!"

"It's OK, Sixer," Stan said. He raised his glass. "I thought you might do something like that. That's why I switched glasses when you were texting Dipper."

Ford stared at him. "You didn't!"

"Oh, but I did!"

"Well," Ford said, "I realized I'd taken my attention away for a moment, so when you dropped your napkin and bent down for it, I switched them again! What do you think about that?"

"Nothin'. 'Cause I switched them again not thirty seconds before we drank!"

A waiter came and hovered. "Is there something wrong with the wine, gentlemen?"

"No, it's great," Stan said, grinning. "We both want to start with the lobster bisque, then the heart-of-palm salad, and we'll finish with a couple of medium-well filet mignons. That OK with you, brother?"

"It's fine," Ford said, but he looked troubled. "Stanley, are you joking?"

After the waiter left, Stan said, "Yeah, I am. I never switched the glasses at all."

"Then you drank the water from the Fountain."

"Guess I did," Stan said. "Only you did, too."

"You didn't!"

"Divided it up, fifty-fifty," Stanley said. "And it wasn't in the wine. I wouldn't ruin an expensive vintage like this! When we stopped for gas about sundown on the drive down from Ellismere and I went into the station and bought us a couple bottles of water, I doctored them up half and half with the Fountain water before I gave you yours. Remember, you were driving and I opened your bottle for you? I'd already opened it in the men's room and divided the gift."

"So . . . we each get fifteen years back?"

"At least. There was a note wrapped around the little bottle." Stan reached in his jacket pocket and handed it to Ford. "Peculiar, huh?"

Ford adjusted his glasses and read:

* * *

 _Gentlemen: A young friend of yours called on me while you were at the airport picking up the good Father M. The boy in the yellow straw hat told me to let you know his name is Dunn Bergas. That means nothing to me. He suggested that I give you "just enough for forty." He didn't say forty what, but I can guess._

 _He is a strange boy. He walked to the house and came down the driveway with all the dogs escorting him—as though he were an angel with powers of soothing them. He told me his brief message and then . . . walked away and somehow disappeared. I lost sight of him for a moment, and then he was gone._

 _Accept this as my gift to you. May it bring you good and not evil. I trust you will not return to visit me again, and so for the last time, I wish you well._

 _JPdL"_

* * *

"That boy again?" Ford asked. "Who is he?"

"Beats the heck outa me! Crazy name, though—Dunn. Short for Dunnagan or something, I guess."

"Something uncanny about him," Ford said. "I'd like to know who he is!"

"Somebody who did us a good turn. I dunno, maybe he _is_ a guardian angel. Might be the same guy who gives me my luck at cards—and then takes it away when I get too confident for my own good? You know, I'm thinkin' we'd better lay low for a few days. Juan said when this stuff kicks in it screws with your head a little."

"Fifteen or twenty years," Ford mused. "I'd be able to make Lorena a real offer of marriage."

"Yeah, I was thinking the same about Sheila, myself," Stan admitted. "Now, from what Juan told me during our marathon card tournament, what we drank shouldn't foul up our memories. That happens when you reset the clock three or four times, he says. So—to us. It's just wine."

They clinked and drank again.

"I wonder if it'll really work," Ford said.

"Worked on Juan last winter. Guess we'll see."

"You didn't keep any?"

"Not a drop."

"That's a pity," Ford said. "If it could be analyzed, we might be able to synthesize it—"

"And that's exactly why I didn't save any," Stanley said. He tilted his head. "How you feeling?"

"Physically? Well, thank you. Why?"

"'Cause your eyebrows are darker."

Ford blinked. "So . . . are yours!"

"It's started," Stan said with a grin. "My gums are a little sore. I think I'm growing a new set of teeth!"

"We're rejuvenating," Ford said. "I hope to Heaven that Juan didn't trick you—that he didn't overdose us!"

"I trust him," Stan said. "A con artist gets to know when a guy's on the level."

The waiter served the soup and salad, and they began to eat. "Either this is extraordinarily good soup," Ford said, "or my taste buds have improved some, too!"

"Little of both, I expect," Stan said. "And it is good grub. Well, we should wind up around forty-eight, fifty. I think I'd be up for learning SCUBA driving at that age. Whatcha think?"

"I think we should wait and see where we wind up," Ford said cautiously. "Maybe it's the wine—but I feel a strange exhilaration."

"We'll go out and celebrate a little," Stan said. "Get picked up by the cops."

"What!"

"Well, we're gonna be confused come tomorrow, according to Juan," Stan said. "We'll be in a drunk tank, no money on us, they'll keep us overnight, and then I'll get Sheila to wire us our fine. Got it figured."

"I won't go to jail! It would ruin my reputation!"

"Gotcha, Ford!" Stan said with a laugh. "Nah, we'll hang around the hotel room tomorrow until we know we're good to go. After about thirty-six hours, Juan told me, the wooziness is gone. But the reju—what was it?"

"Rejuvenation."

"Yeah, that. It'll go on gradually for a month or six weeks. You know what I'm thinking?"

"What?"

"This works, and our gals are willing, a double wedding just after Christmas. When the kids can be there."

Ford lifted his glass. "I," he said, "will drink to that!"

* * *

 **. . .** **Until the Fat Lady . . .**

Now, no one would call Lorena Jones, the Gravity Falls reference librarian "fat." No one within Ford's hearing, anyway. And she wasn't—she was nice-looking, attractive for a middle-aged lady, very lively, good-humored, and full of little facts about the moon Triton, decapods, or Gaueko, a demonic entity in Basque legends who makes sure people fear the night.

Ford found that kind of small talk very stimulating. He found Lorena more so. Toward the end of October, when he and Stan returned to Gravity Falls, she was the first person he called on.

"You look great!" she said. "But I don't think you should dye your hair."

"It isn't dye," Ford said. "It's the result of a kind of spa treatment I had in Florida. Wonderful state. We should go there some time."

She laughed. "I rarely have time off from the library for a long trip like that! I can't get over how fit you look. Whatever you did, it suited you!"

"Lorena," Ford said, "I think I know how this goes." He went down on one knee. "I don't have the ring yet, but—will you marry me? The week after Christmas would be ideal."

Lorena's face registered surprise, then shock, and then a blushing delight. "Of course, I'll marry you!" she said. "Oh, get up and kiss me!"

In between kisses, Ford said, "We'll shop for a ring tomorrow. The biggest diamond you can find! I'm—I'm happy, darling. For the first time in ages, I'm truly happy."

And then they were happy together.

* * *

On the same night, at almost the same time, Stan, nuzzling Sheila Remley's neck, said, "So, we talked about it and I don't know whether you were jokin' or not—but wanna get married? I mean to me? How about the week after Christmas?"

"Why, Stanley," Sheila said, "it took you long enough! Of course, I wasn't joking! What did you do in Florida, anyway? You're a lot . . . friskier than usual. And you look so young!"

"Meh, I visited the Fountain of Youth," Stan said. "Here ya go, honey. This was my grandmother's on my ma's side. Hope you like it. If you want a bigger diamond, I'll have one set."

Sheila took the ring. "It's perfect," she said.

"Only three-quarters of a carat. Honest, we can have a bigger diamond set in it if—"

"I wouldn't have anything but this one. Or any man but you."

"Yeah, I am kind a diamond in the rough, ain't I?"

"Not so rough," she whispered, nuzzling his neck.

* * *

 **. . . Screams!**

It was, appropriately, on the morning of Saturday, October 31, the day after the twin proposals and acceptances, that Ford, shaving (he had finally broken himself of removing his stubble with fire), had one of those moments you've had now and then.

You know, you suddenly realize that the answer to the Money Wheel grand prize puzzle, blank-blank-blank blank blank-blank-B is "GET A JOB!" and it's right. Or you realize that if you twist the cube puzzle this way, then a half-turn, then flip it and another half-turn and twist, and you have all six faces solid colors, and you know you'd never be able to do that again in a million years. Or you're taking a history final, and there's a fill-in-the-blank, and you know, without knowing how you know, that the missing word is "investiture." That kind of inspiration.

This one made Ford cut himself.

A few minutes later, with a piece of toilet paper stuck to his chin and showing a red splotch, he texted Dipper—having some problems with autocorrect, but he went back and fixed it—to ask:

* * *

 _Can you make anything of the name DUNN BERGAS?_

* * *

Dipper phoned him in nine and a quarter minutes: "Uh, Grunkle Ford?"

"Yes, Mason, go ahead. I just want to confirm what I suspect."

"Um—well, if you put all the vowels in one group and all the consonants in the other—well, if you count backward from D, you get C, then B. If you count backward from U in the vowels, you get O and then I. The N's—well, you see where this is going. B-I-L-L."

"I thought so," Ford said grimly.

"Bergas, that's harder. It could be a code, but chaotic. One forward from B, C. One forward from E, I. Two backward from R, P. One forward from G, H. One forward from A, E. One backward from S, R. C-I-P-H-E-R."

"I saw the same pattern, or near-pattern. The chaos would fit him, wouldn't it?" Ford asked.

Dipper's voice shook a little: "Grunkle Ford—is he back?"

"I wish I knew."

* * *

It was probably one of the bravest things that Ford had done in his whole life, but he visited the clearing in the forest where the Bill Cipher effigy stood. And it was still there, frozen, gaining a thin coat of green moss. And in its hand, outstretched as if for a handshake, an envelope had been sort of threaded in and out of the fingers. Ford took it, but he didn't feel up to opening it until he got back to the Shack.

* * *

 _Well, well, well. Took you long enough! Hey, Fordsy, want a free earworm? 'We'll meet again.' Come on, you know the tune! You know the words! Sing along! No charge._

 _Seriously, you can thank me for the free sip of water. And the advice. Though it pains me to say it, because of a rule laid down by the Axolotl—the Oracle might have mentioned that being to you—I'm sort of sordidly on the side of the angels now, but even so I'm still looking for the angles, if you know what I mean! Hey, kidding about your thanking me because I know you won't trust me, and no wonder. I don't trust me, either._

 _So there—we have something in common! In time to come, don't look for me often. I can only maintain a quasi-material existence for a short time at a time not all the time time time in a sort of Runic rhyme, if you know what I mean. If you don't ask Lorena, she's up on Poe-try! I'll be watching, maybe give you a nudge now and then in a helpful way, and I'll C you around, so YOU just better watch your step, young(er) man!_

 _OK, now you can scream._

* * *

 _The End_


End file.
